The Calendar Suite
by Goldberry and NessieGG
Summary: Everything is in the cards. [NejiTen. Collaboration.]
1. The Fool

**A/N**: Welcome to the first-ever collaboration by Goldberry and myself, NessieGG. We're very excited about this project, which was Berry's fantastic idea, and we hope you enjoy it!

How It Works: We'll be taking turns posting our fics. I've gone first, and then Berry will be next, and so on for a total of 22 NejiTen stories.

Note: All the fics are based off of tarot cards and their meanings.

Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto and are making no profit off of these humble fanworks.

**Leaping First**

"The Fool"

By Nessie

"I'm going."

His eyes open, twin spheres of white fire that glow in the night and burn into her profile. Tenten doesn't turn to meet his gaze because she already knows what she'll find there. The only thing Neji has ever openly shown her.

Doubt.

It isn't that he doesn't think she can do it. He knows she can, but it's the simple matter of whether or not she _should _that arranges his face into a stone-hard display of dubiousness. His faith in her is kept inside, too deep for her or anyone else to see. But she knows that it, like all the rest of his feelings, is there. It's the same way one is sure of the bottom of the ocean being real.

She sometimes finds herself wishing that something else, anything other than that show of uncertainty is a little closer to the surface. But that is who Neji is…the genius.

Standing with her at the top of the steep hill that is only a few degrees short of being a cliff, Neji watches her as she takes weapons strapped to her legs and moves them to the backpack she wears. "It's too dark. You can't even see the bottom from up here."

"I can see the treetops," she assures him. "Meaning the ground isn't too far below them." Completing her task, she finally looks up and almost winces at the relentless cold emanating from his stare. The warm night has sweat beading along her brow, and Neji makes her want to shiver. But she expects him to fight. Like always. "Besides, it's my fault Lee was captured. If I had killed that Cloud-nin right away, he wouldn't have been—"

"Stop it." His sharp tone silences her at once, and Neji folds his arms. "The fault belongs to no one. Lee accepts the risks as much as any of us."

Guilt rolls around her stomach and makes her queasy, but Tenten holds her ground and faces her partner with a tough look of her own. "He's our teammate, Neji. And I'm going to save him."

"Then let me…" Before he can say more, he sways, and Tenten darts out to steady him so that he doesn't fall to the grass. She sits him down gently, kneeling to stay on eye level with him. Tenten presses her lips together at the sight of him; his Hyuuga family gi, rumpled and torn in places, is stained with blood that isn't his. The fall of long hair over his shoulder is tangled and clumped with dirt. Worst of all is that his skin is nearly as pale as his eyes because he's used too much chakra to fight the ten-member Cloud squad that their three-man team had faced only twenty minutes ago.

Tenten smirks as she rubs his shoulders, trying to work up better circulation for him. "You're not going anywhere. You wouldn't get more than five steps down the slope before your chakra gives out and you fall the rest of the way down."

"It's a trap, Tenten." A hand comes up and grips her forearm. His fingers are cold enough to make her reflexively jerk, but he holds on. "There's at least four of them waiting for you. More if they had reinforcements down there the whole time." His pearly eyes flick over to survey the abandoned battlefield to his left. The grass in the field has been reddened with enemy blood. Men that had once filled the air with battle calls now lay silent and motionless, slain by the edge of Tenten's sword, Lee's hand, or Neji's Kaiten. Six of them in total, two for each. Tenten should have had a third, but she had hesitated upon seeing the fear in his eyes, and a ninja behind her had placed a kick to her side, giving her would-be victim the chance to jump away and grab Lee. They had all fled down the hill in seconds, their hostage grasped firmly.

Tenten stands up and raises her eyes to the star-spilled sky above them. "I know that," she murmurs. Blinking, she angles her head to smile wryly down at him. "But it's my fate, isn't it?"

Neji grunts, unappreciative of her joke. She allows her face to go serious again.

"I'll be fine, Neji. Lee will be, too. And you." Turning her back to him, she looks out to the space where the earth ends, giving way to darkness and stars. In a few moments, she'll become part of that darkness while Neji watches. Tenten keeps her face emotionless but she's not as good at it as he is, and anxiety flashes in her eyes as she plants her feet and draws out her katana from the sheath at her hip.

But Neji can't see her eyes, and she's grateful for that. She can hear him breathing behind her, the loudest thing in her ears. He inhales sharply just before—

"Tenten."

"We'll be home by morning," she says, and jumps.

"Ten—!" Air rushes past her, drowning out his voice and the rest of her name. Her chakra-sealing feet are sure and steady for several yards down. She trips once on an unseen rock, but after some clever movement and a low oath, Tenten gains her balance and finishes. She unconsciously thanks Gai-sensei for all of his rigorous training.

Dust rises as she lands at the bottom beneath slowly-swaying trees, and it takes a second for the world to stop shaking. Between strands of loose brown hair escaped from her buns, she sees the five figures standing in preparation. One of them is gagged but regards her with fierce determination, and the outward belief in her she never gets from Neji. That is Lee's job, and all three of them know that.

That's why he won't be dying tonight.

"Sorry I took so long," she mutters to him, raising her katana. All four ninja advance upon her, and she jumps back, using the hill as a brace while she thrusts out the blade and impales the first through the throat. In the same stroke, she cuts a second, killing him with a hit to his vitals using her free left hand.

The third is dead with a right-to-left horizontal technique that slices everything between his shoulders, and Tenten feels satisfaction for half of a moment before the fourth comes at her just as she is left completely open by her previous attack. And the Cloud-nin, the same one she didn't kill before, grins with a triumphant yell because he knows he has one. He knows that she will be dead in a second.

Her eyes widen, not with the fear she had kept so carefully hidden from the Hyuuga that sits a few hundred feets above her, but with the realization that she had lied to him. _Neji…I'm sorr_—

The thought ends with a flash of chakra as the Cloud-nin freezes right in front of her, hand still raised to deliver a finishing blow. His eyes are huge as they grow dim, and then he slumps, lifeless, to the ground where the last of his fellows lay.

The katana drops from her outstretched hand.

To her right, she sees him out of the corner of her eyes. He is only a blur of raven hair and moon-white eyes, but he is the most beautiful sight in the world. He shines against the death-dark night. Tenten turns to him, mouth agape.

"Neji," she breathes. Enough shock seeps out of her brain for her to talk. "What…why did you…?" Words are beyond her, and she simply swallows and waits.

Neji is hunched over, but he raises his sweat-dampened head to give her the same smirk she showed him earlier. "You were…wrong," he pants, shoulders rising and falling with the extra effort. "I got to ten steps…and it was…all I needed." The last of his energy expires, and he spills forward.

Tenten catches him, his head drooping against her blood-smeared shoulder. She cradles him against her and sighs as she lowers both of them to the ground. "Neji." Her hand runs through the black of his hair and strokes over his back.

By now, Lee has managed to free himself of his bounds and runs over. "Tenten! Neji…is he—"

"Unconscious," she tells him with a smile. "And will be for the next couple of days. He's used up all his chakra." She reaches for her katana with her burning arm and looks up to her newly-rescued teammate. "Can you carry him, Lee?"

The green-clad boy swells, flattered by her instant reliance on him. "It would be an insult to both your beautiful shows of exuberant youth if I did not take it upon myself to see our impulsive friend home safely!"

_Impulsive_, Tenten wonders as Lee takes Neji from her arms and settles him over his spandex-covered back. _That's one way to put it._ She thought that _idiot _was an even better description.

"Fool," she whispered admiringly to the sleeping Hyuuga. "You're such a fool, Neji."

_And so am I_.

But she was happy knowing that she was a fool – not a liar. They would be home by morning.

And they would be together.

**The End**


	2. The Magician

_GeeBee's Notes: Thought I might say a little something about the title of this project. I got it's name from a combination of the calendar spread, a typical spread used with tarots to divine things for the coming year, and a suite, a musical composition of different movements. The 22 one-shots Ness and I are writing are all based on the 22 cards of the Major Arcana. (My college fortune-telling skills are finally coming in handy!) A fitting theme, I think, considering Tenten's hobby._

_This installment takes place during the time jump in the manga. Also, Ness and I apparently have a theme of bastardizing the Cloud-nin. ;)_

_Also I love Lee. I really do. I just can't help teasing him a bit._

_Enjoy!_

Sleight of Hand

"The Magician"

There were times when Hyuuga Neji did not like his job.

Most of these rare moments passed by without so much as an outward flicker. Neji was very good at controlling both facial expressions and emotions; if there was something he wanted to kept hidden, it stayed hidden. If he ever felt dissatisfication with himself or his mission, he responded with doing something- doing more -whether it be training or otherwise. There were times, however, when simple physical or mental activity was not enough to recover his equilbrium and he found himself disgruntled and frowning at anything within a two mile radius. (Tenten had once called it his "grumpy face" which, since it was her, he might have let it pass if Lee hadn't overheard and doubled over laughing. Needless to say, neither of them ever thought of using cutesy nicknames in his presence again.)

Today was definitely a "grumpy face" day.

Standing in the back of a dimly lit tent, arms crossed over his chest as he ran an irritated gaze over the crowd, Neji tried inwardly to focus himself. The mission was going well, there were no obvious hiccups in their plan, and Lee had stopped making goo-goo eyes at the acrobats long enough to make himself useful backstage. All things considered, the Hyuuga should have been pleased. They would be back in Konoha earlier than planned if things continued to go well.

Part of his agitation, though, stemmed from the feeling that things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Turning a pearly-eyed gaze to the stage, Neji allowed himself to glower at the man occupying it. Takouji (his "stage name" or so he said) was a magician by trade, but a spy in other circles. His troupe performed in villages all over the mainland and so he was a prime spot to observe and report things he learned. Konoha had recently purchased valuable information concerning an agreement between Cloud and Bird Country, the details of which the Godaime had sent Neji's team to collect. The only hitch was Takouji himself.

The insipid little man seemed to think quite a lot of himself and had told Tsunade-sama she could have the information in exchange for a shinobi guard (against "brigands" he said) to the edge of Fire Country.

Hence why Neji was currently listening to garish music from a loudspeaker and trying not to flinch everytime his sensitive eyes fell on Takouji's orange and yellow sequined costume.

From the beginning, Neji had not trusted Takouji. The man sold his knowledge to the highest bidder and had no loyalty to any one village. He would be as quick to sell Konoha secrets to the Cloud if the price was right. (The very reason why Tsunade-sama never let him do a performance within the village limits.) Still, despite how low Neji's opinion of their client was, it dropped considerably lower when Takouji included Tenten in the price to be paid.

After seeing her talent for weaponry, Takouji had insisted she take part in the nightly performances by juggling an array of sharp objects and "assisting" him with some of his bigger magic acts. Neji might have been alright with the juggling as Tenten seemed to find it amusing, but when Takouji blithely suggested Tenten wear a slinky gold dress and let him make her "disappear", Neji's grumpy face had taken up permanent residence .

Lee had wisely kept any sort of reaction to himself this time.

"Thank goodness this is our last night of this," a voice murmured good-naturedly beside him, "My feet are killing me."

He didn't have to angle his head down to know that Tenten was standing at his shoulder, shifting her weight on her two inch, glitteringly gold heels. She was dressed in her costume for the magic act, hair down and heated into curls, dress slinking over her hips and pooling at her feet. (Not that Neji noticed Tenten's hips. No.)

"You agreed to it," he reminded her, a bit petulantly, still looking for signs of trouble within the audience. So far he'd had to throw out a total of four men and one old woman for rude or indecent behavior. (The old woman had tried to knee him in the groin. Twice.)

He felt Tenten smile at his elbow. "Well, it was the only way to get what we wanted, right?"

To answer would have been to agree that what she was doing was somehow acceptable. Neji settled for a noncommittal grunt. Tenten patted his arm.

"Don't worry. It'll be done soon," she said, as she passed him on her way backstage, a bright flare against a dark backdrop. He watched her go until she disappeared from view and the drum rolls started, signaling the dramatic act of the evening. At that point, he started making his way closer to the stage as Takouji appeared, flourishing his cape. There was always a troublemaker or two when Tenten came on, someone a little too drunk who thought lewd catcalls were the way to a woman's heart. Neji took complete satisfaction in proving otherwise.

In minutes, a spotlight turned on and Tenten stepped out, smiling as Takouji spoke to the avid audience and shut the kunoichi inside a glass cage. The cage was then lifted off the ground about a foot by heavy robes to prove there was no hidden hatch in the stage floor. After that, Takouji threw his cape over the cage and proceeded to do a number of hand movements that made him look ridiculous.

It was a trick Neji had seen him perform all week. Takouji would say the magic words, the cape would come off, and Tenten would be gone, replaced by a somewhat lethargic lioness. Another phrase, cape went back on, and Tenten was back, still smiling and letting Takouji led her from the cage as he bowed to thunderous applause.

He expected nothing different this time and so did not actually watch the performance, instead keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the tent. Because of this, he didn't notice Takouji leading the lioness from her cage until the audience started clapping, marveling at the magician's ability to transform a girl in a gold dress into the golden cat on stage.

It took Neji exactly three seconds to realize what was happening.

"Byakugan!" he said, and turned to send a palm of chakra through the chest of a ninja sneaking up on him from behind. He got to sense four others in the crowd before everything turned to chaos. Men started shouting, women were screaming, a lion roared, and Neji saw a kunai fly threw the air towards his heart. With no room for the Kaiten and unable to dodge for fear it would hit a bystander behind him, Neji raised his arm and took the blade just below the elbow, pulling it free a moment latter and feeling blood stain his sleeve. Instead of following the kunai's path, however, he turned and ran for the stage. The Byakugan showed him a hive of people behind it, including one boy in a green jumpsuit doing some wild acrobatics of his own.

Seeing that Lee was doing fine, Neji reached out and grabbed Takouji by the throat as the magician attempted to lose himself in the crowd.

"Where is she?" he asked, feeling a primitive desire to crush the man's windpipe. "What did you trade her for?"

"Th..they said they wouldn't hurt her!" Takouji squeaked. "They just wanted to t..talk to her! The C..Cloud..."

Neji had heard enough. "Where?"

"O..Out back, behind the wagons!"

By the time he got there, the wagons looked like pincushions and Tenten had cleared some space between her and her attackers with an unfurled scroll she must have had hidden somewhere. (Neji would later wonder exactly where.) Her dress had been ripped in several places and she was limping on her right foot, both of her high heels missing completely. There was a cut down her cheek, too, a line of red that did nothing for his temper.

The first Cloud ninja that got in his way received Jyuuken straight to the heart.

"Neji!" Tenten called when she saw him. She was whirling a fuuma shurikan in front of her like a bladed shield. "I think they'd like a demonstration of the Byakugan. They seem very interested in it." Her voice was hard and her eyes were cold as she ripped her shurikan down her enemy's shoulder. Of all people, she understood best his feelings about the Cloud.

Locking eyes with the shinobi in front of him, Neji smirked icily. "As you wish."

Several minutes later, in the middle of two large craters with scrolls fluttering to the ground around them, Neji caught Tenten's arm as she limped over to him.

"How did you figure it out?" she asked, looking out over the twitching victims of Neji's wrath.

"Takouji cut the act before the end. He brought the lion out instead of you."

She nodded. "They were waiting for me when I came out back stage. I didn't have a chance to give a warning." She seemed apologetic and Neji frowned a little. "They wanted to interrogate me about Konoha and our blood limits." Her eyes flickered up to his. "Including yours."

He didn't say anything. It didn't really come as a surprise.

"What do you think he got in exchange for me?" she mused after a moment. He glanced at her and she grinned, still slightly exhilarated from the fight. "More sequins?"

A smile twitched across his lips before his expression smoothed once again. "I hope not." Out of the corner of his eye, Neji saw Lee exit the tent and start towards them, practically bounding with energy.

"Did you get the scroll?" he asked, when his teammate had slid to a stop before them. Lee threw him a gleaming smile and lifted a slightly ragged roll of parchment in his bandaged hand.

"Takouji-san seemed very happy to give the information to me. He left rather quickly, too. I've never seen such a youthful display of stamina!"

Tenten coughed lightly and Neji refrained from rolling his eyes. Instead, he said, "Tsunade-sama will want the details of that treaty."

Walking back to the tent together, Neji steadied Tenten with an arm around her shoulders while she admonished him about taking a hit from a kunai and not saying anything about it. Lee started babbling about acrobats and how some of their moves could be used in taijutsu and wouldn't Gai-sensei be thrilled to hear it? Neji kept silent and simply listened to them both, feeling his earlier irritation slip away as Tenten rolled his sleeve back to check his wound, her fingers quick and gentle against his skin.

There were times when Hyuuga Neji did not like his job.

"Let's go home, Neji," Tenten said, her hand resting on his wrist. Behind her, Lee flashed him a thumbs up.

And then there were times he didn't want to be anywhere else.

The End.


	3. The High Priestess

_Author's Notes: I'm sorry this fic has been so long in coming, although this honestly is a back-burner project for Berry and I. October has not really been a great month for either of us but we're still here and we hope you all are too._

_This particular story goes along with a prompt Berry gave me quite awhile ago: "On the subject of Hinata." I hope you enjoy it!_

Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto and are making no profit from this fan story.

**Protecting The Guardian**

"The High Priestess"

By Nessie

The smell of medicines and antibiotics filled the air, the scent offending the enhanced sense of smell possessed by any competent Konoha ninja who might have been present in the hospital's waiting room. Colorless walls surrounded the six visitors who sat speechless in uncomfortable plastic chairs that dotted the minimal space.

Team Kurenai was there, a solid unit of silence. Kurenai herself sat with her back straight and her legs crossed, the very image of reserved patience with a magazine in one hand and a paper cup of now-cold tea in the other. Beside her, Shino had his arms folded and his head bent at a downward angle that caused his face to be even more obscured than usual by the high neck of his jacket collar. Slumped beside him was Kiba, who stared glazed-eyed out the window, his newly-bandaged hand running absently through Akamaru's fur. The shinobi's dog sat at his feet, sorrowfully whimpering…for the absence of the female member of their team who just happened to be the reason for why they were all at the hospital.

The one Chuunin-level kunoichi who was present watched them all with a serious, observant eye. Tenten did not know Shino or Kiba very well, and at most they had been sent on missions with her own teammates, not herself. Sitting this close to them while they were so deep in thought of their infirmed partner was awkward at best, and she felt out of place.

But only with them. Lee was on her left and beside him she felt as though she perfectly belonged. The Beautiful Green Beast had insisted upon coming "to be moral support for their fellow generation ninjas" although after so many hours of sitting and waiting, he was starting to look anything but beautiful. Tenten occasionally felt him give her hand a small pat when she began to unconsciously clench it on the armrest. And as for her other teammate…

Neji had been here since dawn when Team Kurenai had first returned from the A-class mission to the Land of Thunder, where they had apparently been ambushed by a group of rogue Grass-nin. Kurenai had speculated that there was political unrest in the Land of Grass and that factions were being formed within the Hidden Village of Cloud. Most of the team had escaped with little to no injury, except for—

Without warning, Kiba shot out of his seat. Akamaru jumped to his four feet and let out a sharp bark as the young shinobi exhaled a curse. "Why the hell are we just sitting here?" he demanded. "It's our problem…our _fault _that Hinata got hurt!"

Tenten held her breath as her soft brown eyes went from the irate dog-master to her introverted teammate. Neji stood near the same window Kiba had been staring out of, his back turned to the room's other occupants. It was noticeable only to Tenten when his shoulders tightened; otherwise he went without reaction to Kiba's sudden outburst.

With his distinctive eyebrows narrowed, Lee said in a calm voice, "Kiba-san, this is a hospital. Please, if you could perhaps quiet yourself—"

"_You_ shut up!" Akamaru emphasized Kiba's order with a growl. Kurenai set her magazine to the side and uncrossed her legs. Shino glanced up, his eyes invisible from behind his dark sunglasses as he watched his teammate explode.

Tenten noted that Lee's facial response was not the one of someone who had been offended, just sad.

"This isn't your business, and you're not in my shoes! Your kunoichi isn't hurt on the _one _day Tsunade-sama isn't in town." Tenten's lips thinned. It was true; the Godaime had gone to the Land of Grass herself the day before and word hadn't been able to reach her inside the secretive country's borders. "Hinata has nothing to do with you guys anyway! I don't even know why the hell you're _here_!"

In a move that seemed delayed, Kurenai stood up and placed a long-fingered hand on her student's shoulder. "That's enough. You're not in perfect condition either, Kiba." Kiba answered her by shrugging out of her reach, but she grabbed him by his shirtsleeve and gave him a fast, hard shake. "You need rest!" she told him forcefully, expressing in three words that she was both in charge and just as concerned as Kiba.

Shino opted to remain silent, but he got up obediently and followed his teacher and reluctant partner to the door. He paused only once, calling without looking back. "Thank you for coming, Neji." He didn't wait to see if any reply was forthcoming, and when the door clicked behind him, the two seated members of Team Gai turned to study the one by the window.

Tenten hunted through her memories for things she might have said in the past when the genius needed consoling, but she couldn't find any words that would decently follow up Shino's softly-spoken gratitude. She needn't have worried. As proven time and time again, Lee was there to save them all from a particularly suffocating silence.

"Neji, listen." A smile, though it was in want of his usual boundless energy, crossed Lee's uncharacteristically reserved face. "Even though Tsunade-sama isn't here, Sakura-san is. She's Tsunade-sama's student, so I'm sure that Hinata-san will be just fine in her care."

Neji did not say anything or direct his pale eyes at them. They continued to have only a fall of night-black hair and a rigid spine to look at. Lee turned to Tenten, and she opened her mouth as if to say something…but found once again that she had no words, not a single syllable. Her brown eyes were wide on Lee's black ones, and Tenten had the sudden sensation of drowning, submerged beneath a wave of worry that threatened to swamp her.

But then there was the warmth of her friend's hand on hers again, and she recalled how to breathe. She shot Lee a grateful smile – that, sadly, was more of a grimace – before the taijutsu master went to his feet.

"I'm going to go find some tea. And I'll taste it first," Lee promised while looking at Tenten even though it was apparent that he was speaking to Neji. "If it's very bad, I will go purchase a better kind."

Tenten watched him go, simultaneously warmed by his kind gesture and chilled by the thought of remaining in this room that seemed so plain and heartless with the person who had stayed detached from everyone around him for the last four hours, when Hinata had first entered surgery.

In the next instant, she grew angry with herself. What was wrong with her, acting all nervous and insecure just because Neji was brooding in the corner? It was _Neji_ – he was the king of brooding. She could remember a time when they had been forced to stall a mission due to a snowstorm. He had done this very thing, standing by a window all night until the sky had cleared and they could continue on.

Tenten paused in her swift thought process. No matter what she remembered, there was a difference this time. There was no snowstorm, and this was no mission. This was Hinata, and she was hurt and lying in an operating room with a girl who was still a pupil. That Sakura was being taught by a master of medical ninjutsu meant little to Neji, she was sure.

But she had never seen him in such a state, and that was what unsettled her. Time lost and obstacles didn't make Neji unresponsive and so pensive that he didn't even notice the world outside his mind. A hospitalized Hinata evidently did.

She rose from the discomforting chair and found with some self-disgust that her knees were lightly trembling. _Come on, Tenten_, she scolded herself. _You're a kunoichi, not a housewife._ She stared at Neji's back with eyes that she knew without seeing were burning. She was the one who knew Neji, perhaps better than anyone. He had confided in her before, told her things that most would never dream the Hyuuga even thought of. She could tell when Neji was upset and she could tell when he was perfectly fine. And this…this was neither of those, but something in between, and understanding that made her feeling a little more confident. That at least caused her to stop shaking.

Straightening her shoulders, Tenten took a step toward him. Sunlight glided in through the window, making the walls that much paler. The day was beautiful and that seemed to only make her feel worse. "Neji," she finally murmured once she was standing directly behind him.

She felt him hear her although he did not react with any physical motion. "Neji," she repeated, "I know she's important to you." An image of Hinata entered her mind, and then there were flashes of memories where Neji had made clear his feeling of responsibility toward his cousin. He wanted to protect her, knowing that they shared more than white eyes and talented blood. And Tenten comprehended that more than the branch house son would ever know. Because she, too, wanted…had always wanted…

Slowly, Neji pivoted. Sun flooded the window behind him and made him glow at the edges of his form. Her breath caught when he had faced her, and she thought her heart stopped when he met her eyes.

Despite the light that gave him an ethereal appearance, the set of his jaw was hard and revealed his current lack of tenderness. And even though his eyes were completely ashen, they still seemed to be somehow dark. Tenten reacted the way he had to everyone else; unnoticeably, except that her hand rose, seemingly unbidden. Her fingers brushed against the smooth, slanted plane of his cheek, feeling the softness…and the terrible coldness of it. Her hand snapped back, then settled against his neck. "Oh, Neji," she breathed, stepping closer.

He grasped her wrist, his hands as equally heatless. The action, like hers, was meant as that of a friend, but it was just another question asked below the surface. Just another wonder not dared to dream. "When my father died, it was an unspoken expectation for me to watch over her as he had done." He trained his gaze on his female teammate's as he spoke in low, soft tones. "Hinata-sama – the leader of my future."

"But it isn't just a family obligation, is it?" Tenten gently withdrew from him so that he would speak to her seriously. "I mean…your uncle isn't even here."

"Hiashi-sama has faith in his daughter, whether or not he chooses to reveal it." Neji's lips had pressed so tightly together that she briefly feared he would sprain them with the pressure. "He believes she will survive this. And if she does not, he would prefer to not be present."

Tenten decided this was not the time to voice her opinion of Hinata's father. "This isn't your fault, Neji. You weren't there." She felt him draw away before he ever moved, so she stepped closer to him, backing him up against the window sill so he couldn't get away easily. "And you know that Hinata is ready to take care of herself and trust her life with her teammates."

"I am…" His curse-sealed brow furrowed with thought. "In the eyes of my family, I am her guardian," he finished with as solemn a look as Tenten had ever seen him give her.

"I know," she whispered, reaching up to brush her fingers through the ends of his ebony hair. "But that shouldn't be all you are." She made to lower her hand again, but Neji surprised her by grabbing it and holding it closer to his chest.

"You don't _understand_," protested Neji, voice rising in volume and causing Tenten's eyes to narrow. "You aren't the son of a branch house, Tenten. I know you've been with me all these years – don't think I forget that," he added when she started to pull away. "But Hinata-sama has been with me all of my life. She is my charge, and I am her servant. If something happens…if she dies," he corrected courageously, "it's more than likely I'll be exiled for failing…for—"

"Neji," she interrupted, eyes widening. "You…" Her hand tightened beneath his.

And she remembered what her purpose had turned into over the years. Not only had she developed into a powerful kunoichi, but she had morphed from a lonely girl to a precious part of Team Gai, and from there…she had been not only Neji's closest friend, but a protector for _him _as well. Even if he constantly outmatched her in combat technique, she had him forever beat in matters of self.

So it was Tenten who realized what Neji did – that even if Hinata _were_ to die and he _was _disgraced, it would still mean freedom for him. Such a secret he wouldn't even risk sharing with her. Neji was horrified by even thinking upon such a notion, just as Tenten was. And if he thought about it too much, Neji would give into his bad habit of creating ideas about his own personality that frankly were not true. Such as—

"Neji, you are _not _a bad person," she assured him with a strong grip on his hand. "You're concerned for Hinata. We all are. You aren't worse than anyone else just because she's hurt right now."

He looked so _lost_ even with so much light right there to shove all darkness away. But he was also looking at her now, and for once Tenten couldn't ignore the way her pulse sped against his fingertips. The corners of his mouth visibly relaxed, and Neji looked down at her with an expression she wasn't so familiar with.

He finally released her hand to pull his fingers up the length of her arm to her temple. "Tenten," he murmured. "I think we—"

"Neji! Tenten!" Lee's voice echoed in the corridor he had gone into before, and then he appeared in the doorway. "Sakura-san just came out of performing Hinata-san's surgery!"

Tenten felt Neji again tense up against her. "And?"

Lee broke out his customary, sparkling smile. "She's tired and needs bed rest, but Sakura promises she'll be just fine."

Tenten turned to the Hyuuga and clutched him in a tight hug before she could remember herself. It wasn't to relieve her own joy, but to awaken his. She was rewarded with Neji's strict but grateful embrace.

"I'm going to go tell Kurenai-sensei's team!" Lee called, rushing out the main exit.

Neji pushed her away just enough to look down. "Tenten," he started, then paused. After a few seconds, his usual, arrogant smirk arranged itself on his lips. For a moment, his hands on her back felt like fire. "I think we should—"

"Visit Hinata?" Tenten stepped backward and out of his reach, though she made sure to keep her smile on. "I agree." She turned around, knowing he would follow her.

She could feel the way his eyes warmed the back of her neck and breathed deeply as she led the way to the patient ward of the hospital. Just reaffirming her responsibility towards him and knowing that Hinata was going to be alright was enough for Tenten today.

It was enough to remember that even guardians needed protecting sometimes.

**The End**


	4. The Empress

_Author's Notes: This would have been done earlier but I didn't like the first draft and had to start over. For Ness' birthday, here's to my lovely writing partner! You might consider this as the first steps in their relationship because, well, everyone has to start somewhere. Please enjoy.  
_

**A Throne of Wood**

"The Empress"

By Goldberry**  
**

There was no sound in the forest. Fireflies flickered in the darkness but no wind blew, no leaves whispered. The trees were holding their breath, poised for a single moment as their small, wooden world waited. It arrived, sweeping through the heavy branches with the sweet relief of an exhale. It wound through the tall, straight pines and caressed the old oaks and brought deer to a standstill, their ears swiveling. 

A baby was crying.

Deep in a cove of mossy limbs and fallen branches, a young woman lifted a mewling infant in order to wrap it gently in an almost-clean blanket, the child's tiny fists waving in the air as it cried with the abruptness of it's birth. The midwife, despite the blood on her clothes and the knives at her waist, managed a small smile for the infant and it's heaving mother. The light from their small, flickering fire cast deep shadows over her face as she leaned forward to rest the Prince of the Wood against his young mother's breast.

"You have a son, my lady," Tenten said calmly, watching them briefly. Outside, a lone wolf began to howl and was soon joined by a chorus of others. Her expression turned grave at the sound. "And now it's time to run."

* * *

There was no time in the forest, just an endless sea of deep green night. It was an old wood, with towering trees that creaked as the wind blew, ghostly moans of an ancient land. Underbrush was scarce, though, and made for quick traveling as Tenten leaped over a rotting log, sparing a quick look back to make sure Sariya was still following her. 

Though she was not carrying her son, the child being held safely in the crook of Tenten's arm, the princess was having a hard time running, her labored breathing too loud in the stillness. It was not her fault. Though her labor had been relatively easy, it had been long in length and she had had little time to rest. Tenten wished she could have given her more but already she heard the coming of their pursuers, the crack of branches as they were cut down or stepped on, the calls of the men when the breeze was just right. There was no doubt about it, the daimyo's men had found their trail.

It was the baby they were really after, of course. At the moment of his first breath, the child Tenten carried had become the ruler of that emerald realm. Everything around them - the earth, the streams, every stick and stone - all of it was his, and his uncle was not at all thrilled with that idea. No, the current daimyo was not going to give up his position of regency for his dead brother's son, no matter that he was the rightful heir. The child was to be killed, probably along with Sariya as well. Better to leave no traces of the murder done that night.

And so they were being hunted, Tenten could feel it by the tension in her back, as if she expected to be shot down by an arrow at any moment. They had only once choice and that was to flee to safety over the border and into the Land of Rain. A land full of shinobi and a sympathetic daimyo. As soon as they had secured Sariya, Neji had gone ahead to warn Rain's daimyo that they were coming. If all went well, she and Sariya would meet him there at the border where Rain's soldiers would be waiting to take care of any pursuers daring to cross the invisible line between their kingdoms. Lord Ryoma, regent daimyo of the Land of Wood, would not risk war with his stronger neighbor. He would not follow them across the border. They would be safe.

If only Tenten could get them there.

Looking down, Tenten checked on the little prince and found him quite awake, watching her with misty blue eyes. He was in his element, trees reflected in his gaze. Sariya, however, was not. Gasping for air, the princess stumbled over a half-buried root, found her feet, and then fell clear to her knees when her shoe caught a rock. Tenten halted and turned back, offering her free hand.

"Sariya-sama, we must keep moving," she said, her voice low and tight. The breeze was bringing her the smell of smoke. The men had torches, and they were getting closer. Sariya gave her a weary look, dark rings under her eyes, her hands trembling against her ruined skirts.

"I... cannot." She struggled for breathe. "You must leave me. They only want the child. Please," and she reached out to take Tenten's hand, squeezing it weakly, "you must take him. I... can't go any farther." Even as she spoke her eyelids were fluttering as she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness. Grimly, Tenten tightened her hold on Sariya's hand and jerked the princess to her feet. Sariya's face reflected her surprise and a little pain at Tenten's grip.

"Even if I wanted to, I cannot leave you behind," she told the other woman shortly, her nerves worn thin by the events of the night. "Your son is only hours old and will need another feeding soon. Without you he will only die." Lifting the princeling, she released Sariya long enough to make sure the infant was wrapped tightly before repositioning him in the crook of her arm. Then she turned her back and knelt in the dirt, glancing over her shoulder at the princess. "Hurry and get on."

Sariya blinked at her. "What?"

"If you can't run I'll have to carry you. Now _hurry_."

The command in the kunoichi's voice was enough to get her moving, Sariya awkwardly putting her arms around Tenten's neck as Tenten free hand came back to secure her knees. Channeling chakra to her arms and legs, Tenten straightened, gave a mental salute to Lee and his weights, and launched herself upwards into the canopy. She had hoped to avoid traveling like this. Using valuable chakra for such a thing when a battle might lie ahead of them was foolish. Tenten had good chakra control but she lacked stamina. She would not be able to go far if she wanted to conserve any strength.

Wind whistling her in her ears, Tenten kept half an eye on their back trail, pleased to note that they lost their would-be captors after about two miles. She was going too fast for them to keep up and the trail they were leaving had become almost non-existent. They would make it yet.

Tenten was still thinking that when, two hours later, she felt her control slip, Sariya became dead weight and they plummeted towards the forest floor.

The princess screamed, her arms locking around Tenten's neck in what amounted to a choke hold. Eyes watering, Tenten struggled to steady her chakra, but it was like trying to grab a sputtering flame. In frustration, she surrendered as the ground raced up to meet them and she felt chakra fill her feet again.

They landed in a puff of dust, Tenten down on one knee as Sariya wheeled away from her, still frightened beyond belief. Wordlessly, Tenten handed the princess her son and took a moment to massage her neck from where Sariya vise-hold had left bruises. A second later, she discovered that rising to her feet was almost impossible. Every muscle ached, every bone creaked as she straightened, and the world flashed dizzily around her.

"Tenten-san?" she heard Sariya call hesitantly. She felt a steadying hand fall to her shoulder and managed a wane smile for the strength she felt there. Their two hours of travel had given the princess rest, but it was now Tenten who was sure she could not go a step further. Her chakra very nearly gone and her energy reserves were almost empty.

In a brief moment of weary helplessness, Tenten wished Neji had stayed with Sariya and she had gone to Lord Hiroshi. Neji would not have run out of chakra. He would not be swaying on his feet like a drunken sailor, either.

That mental image made her lips curve despite themselves and she forced her traitorous body to still, her mind to focus. Neji might have had better endurance, but he would have been less than helpful delivering Sariya's baby, and he _definitely_ would not have liked carrying a mewling infant. No, she had told Neji she would be fine on her own, that he should only think about his mission. It was time to take some of her own advice.

"Sariya," she said, and winced when her voice came out like a croak. "I need to rest for a few minutes and your son needs to be looked after." She tilted her head back, trying to glimpse the night sky to get her bearings. "We've put a lot of distance behind us, we should be safe for now."

Sariya looked surprised. "But, surely they can no longer catch us at _all_. We've come so far... how could they ever...?"

Tenten pressed her lips together. Yes, they had come far but Tenten guessed they were probably still another hour from the border and there would be no more chakra to speed them on their way. And though they had gained the lead, there was still only one place they could be going. Ryoma would have men waiting for them at the border, she was sure of it.

But she could not tell Sariya this. The woman had given birth in the middle of running for her life. She could ask no more of the princess.

"Better to be safe than sorry," Tenten replied at last, taking the first halting steps towards a close circle of trees to the left. Sariya followed automatically, her son starting to cry gustily for his next meal. They settled against the trunks, Tenten making sure mother and child were as comfortable and as hidden from view as possible. There wasn't much cover but Tenten didn't really expect for them to be found. Their battle still lay ahead of them.

As for Tenten herself, she took a brief, mental inventory of her weapons, trying to scrap together a last minute plan to get them safely into the Land of Rain. The truth was, however, that she didn't really have one. As exhausted as she was, if her enemies overwhelmed her with numbers, she was going to lose.

And she couldn't lose. Not with Sariya and the next daimyo on the line.

Leaning back against the rough bark of the tree, Tenten folded her arms in her lap and closed her eyes. A short nap to get some of her energy back and then the last leg of their journey would begin. Sleeping upright normally wouldn't be all that restful, but after years of being on the same team as Lee and Neji, a girl learned to get her sleep where she could.

She was out in under a minute.

* * *

Sariya shook her awake almost a half an hour later. "Tenten-san! Tenten! Wake up! Something's happening!" 

The frantic note in the princess' voice pulled Tenten from her sleep, her eyes snapping open in a quick, almost violent awakening. She was on her feet immediately, kunai in hand before she really knew what was happening. Sariya was tugging on her sleeve.

"The air, there's something in the air..."

Blinking away the last vestiges of sleep, Tenten looked up and felt the blood drain from her face at what she saw. Black ash was raining down on them, falling with a silence that was almost eerie. Tenten's expression grew dark and she jumped up into the trees, going from limb to limb until she broke though the canopy. The night sky was brilliantly clear and the wind was cool, but black ash was everywhere and, to the west, a ominous red glow flickered. It was moving fast with the breeze. It would reach them soon.

Feeling her heart clench, she dropped back down to Sariya's side who looked at her with a question in her eyes.

"It's Ryoma," Tenten answered, "He's set the woods on fire." Sariya gasped and suddenly the baby in her arms began to cry, as if he understood that his birthright was going up in flames. "He's going to try and trap us between the forest and border. We must leave. _Now_."

They moved quickly, Sariya carrying her son and moving steadily whilst Tenten took point, eyeing the darkness around them warily. The closer they got to the border, the more often she checked her scrolls and brushed fingers over the kunai at her waist. She was still tired, but her head had cleared and she had enough chakra to perform her techniques. She would not withstand a long battle though. She had to get them in and over the border as quickly as possible.

They reached it about forty minutes later, with the golden glow behind them and the sound of men and horses before them. Still hidden by the last line of trees, Tenten pulled them to a stop, mercifully thankful that the baby had stopped crying long before. Silently, she took out two of her scrolls, feeling the smooth paper in her hands, and glanced over at the princess.

"We're going to have to break through Ryoma's men to get to the border," she said calmly, watching the other woman's reaction. There was fear but there was also determination and her arms tightened around her child. She may not have been a kunoichi, but Sariya would fight to protect her baby. Tenten would have smiled if she could. It would be enough. "We're going to go at run. I'm going to cover us. Ryoma's men will try and attack you." She put a hand on Sariya's shoulder. "For the love of your son, you _must not stop_. Do you understand?"

Sariya's gaze was steady when it met hers. "Mamoru."

"What?"

"His name. I decided while you were sleeping."

This time, Tenten did smile. "Mamoru." _Earth_. "It's a good name." She quieted as they looked out towards the still unseen border and the soldiers that stood between them and freedom. After a moment, the two women looked at each other and Tenten hefted her scrolls.

"Ready?"

Sariya nodded.

They burst out of the forest at a dead run, surprising the waiting men so much that Sariya made it past three of them before they realized what was happening. By that time, Tenten was already in the air, dragons roaring and scrolls whirling as she spun like a ballerina, a shower of weapons screaming as they fell. It was easy. The Land of Wood did not have a hidden village, there were no shinobi to fight her. Her steel found their marks and blood stained the ground.

Her scrolls snaked towards the ground as she released her technique, chakra strings in hand. As she came down, she could see a line of men across the field - Hiroshi and his army - and she wondered where Neji was among them and if, even now, his eyes strained to watch her.

Her feet hit the ground a second behind Sariya, and Tenten pulled on her charkra strings, breathing new life into her fallen weapons. She sent them flying out at anyone who approached, knocking men from their saddles. By then the fire had come impossibly near and Ryoma's plan began to backfire on him. The horses didn't like the fire so close and they reared in fright, eyes rolling white. It was enough for Sariya and Tenten to break though the last of them and make a mad dash for the border. A hundred yards. Tenten felt a sharp relief curl through her chest.

Something hit her square in the back, so heavy it knocked the air out of her and tumbled to the ground, struck dumb by the sudden blow. A moment later she realized that a shield lay against her legs and that a man on horseback was galloping at her, lance lowered and ready to skewer her as he passed.

Without knowing how, she knew it was Ryoma, and she turned her head to see that Sariya had not stopped. She was still running flat out with Mamoru in her arms. She was only feet away from safety.

The oncoming rider shouted with rage even as Hiroshi's men and shinobi cheered. On the ground, Tenten pulled up the shield Ryoma had thrown at her and felt his lance hit it hard as he passed, his horse shying away from trampling her. He turned again for a second try and Tenten lurched to her feet, seeing for the first time that Ryoma's soldiers were coming at her. Unlike Sariya, she had come to a stop and soon she would be surrounded.

Tenten lifted one of her kunai and prepared to meet them.

"_Hakkeshō Kaiten_."

Neji dropped in front of her and she immediately went to her knees as he began to rotate in place. Outide of his protective gale, men and horses alike screamed and were thrown back what must have seemed to them a hurricane of blue and silver. A second later, Neji grabbed her hand and they sprinted out of the Kaiten's crater, ignoring the pained moans of fallen men.

Before she knew it, she was enveloped by Hiroshi's men, being jostled between bodies as another cheer went up. Neji's grip on her hand tightened and she was pulled through to an open space, almost falling against him as they came to a stop. He smelled of soap and wind and when his white eyes caught hers, she felt warmth bubble up inside her until she had to smile at him with weary happiness.

"You're late," he accused, as his gaze took in her smudged face and disheveled hair. "And you're almost out of chakra." His voice gave her the impression he was having a hard time deciding which was worse.

"Things happened," she told him, nodding towards where Sariya was standing, Mamoru in her arms. Neji lifted an eyebrow.

"I noticed."

Tenten turned her head back to the front lines. "Did Ryoma stop his attack?" Neji did not even have to look, his words coming cool and smooth in the dark. He'd had his Byakugan activated long before Tenten and Sariya had appeared from the trees.

"Yes. He's afraid of the Rain-nin. He won't start a war with Hiroshi. Not tonight, anyway."

"But they will have to fight sometime," Tenten said softly. "Mamoru will take back his throne when he's old enough. The forest..." The nearest trees had caught on fire, thick clouds of smoke rising like banners. Neji said nothing, simply held her hand. Lord Hiroshi, however, must have heard her for he gave a guffaw of a laugh that startled her.

"Do not worry about the woods, Tenten-san. This is the Land of Rain, after all."

And even as she watched, chakra-veined clouds formed with amazing speed and rain began to fall, heedless of borders as it quenched Ryoma's fire. Cheers went up again and in their midst Tenten though she heard Mamoru gurgle happily.

Yes, she shouldn't grieve for the beauty of the forest that had sheltered her that long night, but she couldn't quite help herself. It had been a lovely place and now it was scarred, deep and black and ugly to her eyes. That Ryoma would set fire to his own lands just to keep them...

"It will grow back." Neji's voice was quiet, little more than a low rumble, but she smiled at his attempt to make her feel better. She leaned against his arm, exhaling tiredly.

"You need to rest," he said abruptly, watching her closely. "You'll need your strength for the journey home."

Tilting her head back to look at him, she felt her lips curve. Without a word, she looked over her shoulder to find Sariya, her eyes locking with the princess'.

"Sariya-sama! Neji says we need to rest. He's offering to babysit."

Sariya smiled, Mamoru waved his fists, and Tenten laughed. Neji only looked disgruntled. Relieved with the night's events, she couldn't stop herself from standing on her tiptoes to lay a quick kiss on his cheek.

"Thanks, Neji," she said, smiling at him. It was for a number of things but she didn't need to tell him that.

He grunted in acknowledgment but she was amused to see that he did not let go of her hand. And though she didn't say it aloud, she knew he was right.

Everything grew with time.

**The End**.


	5. The Emperor

_Author's Notes: Again, apologies on the long hiatus. Chalk it up to school and other stories. Hopefully you will enjoy this one no less!_

_Berry inspired me to play around a little too. In her previous fic, "A Throne of Wood," she made the Land of Rain's daimyo a very nice guy. I thought I'd use the character and reverse his mentality, to have a contrast._

**The Arrangement**

"The Emperor"

By Nessie

The Land of Rain's Hidden Village was a wild place with vines growing throughout the streets, vibrant flowers hanging from the walls of every house, and an unceasingly humid climate. The great hall in which the daimyo received his requested Konoha ninja had the same untamed ambience the rest of the country flaunted.

Neji personally disliked the place. He enjoyed peace and quiet, but the village was _silent_ with the exception of several loudly-pouring waterfalls and the cawing of jungle birds. It was also seemingly devoid of life; only a few armed shinobi could be seen crossing from one meeting place to the next, their faces straight and their flesh scarred. Neji decided it was best that Lee had been sent on a separate mission with Naruto. The younger Beautiful Green Beast would only have caused disruption in the everlasting calm with his uncontrollable personality.

Gratitude, however, was the only thing he felt in knowing that Tenten was with him. The Konoha kunoichi was very good at adapting her moods to the social environment, though a flicker of her usual fire was always present. Knowing it would have made Neji smile, if smiling had not seemed entirely inappropriate at the moment.

The daimyo, Shioshi, was a tall, serious-looking man, richly garbed in bright blues and soft greens. His brow was greatly lined, although whether it was from age or simple disapproval Neji could not tell. As he and his partner stood before the daimyo's seat in the hall, the Hyuuga noticed that Shioshi kept his crinkled eyes only on him and never Tenten.

"As you have been briefed, the Land of Earth has been successfully seizing our imports for the past four months. The Land of Rain depends on several other countries for the supplies that refuse to grow in this humidity, and we in turn export many vegetation-based goods to nations such as the Land of Wind." Shioshi's jaw tightened as he spoke. It seemed to Neji that the daimyo saw the import and export market as an embarrassment to the Land of Rain, rather than just good business. "Any questions?"

"I was a little surprised," Tenten began in a suitably respectful tone, "when I heard that this country was not using its shinobi to defend against the burglars at the northern border. Might I inquire as to why?"

Though he had not thought it possible that Shioshi's tension could increase, Neji did not even need Byakugan to see the vein that protruded at the daimyo's temple. "Woman, I was informed by the Land of Fire's Hokage that you could be used for your _talent_, not your _tongue_."

Neji watched, his eyes narrowed, as shock dominated Tenten's face. Hands fisted, he took a slow breath and wished the Godaime had not silenced him with a direct order.

"_You summoned me, Hokage-sama?"_

_Tsunade looked up from the latest stack of paperwork on her desk. Neji saw at once the shadow of exhaustion so few others managed to perceive and wisely let it go unmentioned. The Fifth's strength was not decreased by a couple of dark circles under her eyes, and he acknowledged that wordlessly. "Are you and Tenten ready to leave tomorrow, Neji?"_

"_Yes, Hokage-sama." A warning went off in his brain. Whenever he and his weapons-favoring teammate were sent on a mission alone together, Tsunade often delighted in teasing him (for __**she**__, unlike the majority of other villagers, had figured out their relationship status). But there was no such playfulness in her demeanor at the moment. "Is something dissatisfactory?"_

_She sighed – his constant formality exasperated her, he knew – and waved him over closer to her. "I have to let you in on something before you head out. The Rain Village…it's different from Konoha. Different from most villages, be they civilian or ninja-based. Few Konoha ninja have had the opportunity to get there, and this report arrived late." She held up a single sheet of paper, and Neji took it at her gesture._

_Scanning the text with silver eyes, he found nothing unusual until he arrived at the third paragraph. This he had to read twice before he managed to react. "The Rain Village…it's…"_

"_Only available to shinobi. The female population is kept in another village a few miles away. They have a custom there that dictates no man shall spend time with a woman unless it is for one of two reasons: wedding or bedding. Young boys are raised by their mothers in the female village until they graduate from the academy. Genin are immediately uprooted to the Rain Village and stay there. Women never set foot inside the shinobi village. And the Land of Rain does not have any kunoichi."_

_Tsunade finished her speech in grave disapproval, then balanced her chin on her aligned fingers. "I wanted your input on whether or not you think Tenten will be alright there. As you can imagine, the daimyo living in the Rain Village is steadfastly anti-feminist. It was as difficult for me to assure him of Tenten's skill."_

_Frowning, Neji regarded his leader with a nearly expressionless face. "You're asking me how I think Tenten will fare then?"_

"_You've known her for ten years. As teammates and – well, more – I thought you would be more capable of gauging her reaction to the way of things in the Land of Rain." Her brow furrowing, "Besides finding it preposterous," Tsunade added._

_Giving it thought, Neji folded his arms. "She's strong. Mentally as well as physically." When Tsunade nodded in agreement, the Hyuuga wished Tenten were beside him; she would have been overjoyed to witness her idol's approval. "I believe, offended or not, she will carry out her mission without any idealistic attachment."_

"_Then that's all we have to discuss. I trust you to lead as expertly as you always do." She dismissed him with an upheld hand, and Neji bowed. Before he could close the door behind him, however, Tsunade called out again._

"_Don't tell Tenten about the Land of Rain's special tradition before you arrive."_

What could have been the purpose in that, Neji now wondered in irritation. He would have preferred to spare his partner the silent offense she now bore because of the rude daimyo, who returned his hard gaze to Neji.

"I look to you to train my men, Hyuuga Neji, so that those damned Earth-nin do not again succeed at claiming what belongs to the Land of Rain!"

At the unanticipated expectation, Neji blinked once in the only display of the surprise he felt. "Train, Shioshi-sama? I was told that we were hired to guard the border from the Earth-nin."

"Indeed you were," nodded the aging daimyo, "but how long can you expect me to rely on Konoha? My men are not learned in this type of defensive strategy, and you are. Logically, I would hope that you will pass on your knowledge, Hyuuga-san."

He slid a glance over to Tenten. She stood facing forward, never so much as twitching beneath his gaze. Her expression seemed to be more featureless than his and as hard as Shioshi's. "To be perfectly honest," Neji replied diplomatically, "I do not possess the people skills that training your shinobi would require. My partner, Tenten, is more than capable of—"

"But it is you, is it not," spat Shishio, "who has been put in charge of your mission? Not this woman."

The way his client spoke the last word, as he had to Tenten, caused Neji's muscles to clench. "Yes, Shioshi-sama."

"Then I expect you to perform the task. We will make sure this 'teammate' of yours waits in the neighboring village until you have completed your work." Shioshi raised his hand to signal for a guide to lead Tenten away.

"No." Before any servant could step forward, Neji's hand was on Tenten's wrist. "She has been assigned this mission in the same way I have. You are paying her at the same rate as I. And she will _not_," he said commandingly, "be removed from me during our time here. On this I'll not be swayed."

Shioshi regarded him coldly, but only for a handful of second. Squaring his shoulders as though to declare the matter a thing of the past, he nodded curtly. "Done. But she remains only because your family is so esteemed, Hyuuga-san."

The audience with the daimyo ended. As both Konoha ninja bowed out, Neji could not help noticing the way Tenten held herself – stiff, restrained. He had never seen it before.

* * *

"It's _unbelievable_!" 

She charged ahead of him into the inn suite they had been loaned, throwing her backpack onto the nearest chair with such force Neji thought it a wonder the legs did not collapse from the malicious intent. Glancing from the bag to his prowling teammate, he busied himself by shutting and locking the door behind him.

She certainly was not stiff or restrained now. Tenten was rampaging.

"That chauvinistic, old-fashioned, sexist, narrow-minded…" She paused in her barrage of insults, snapping her fingers to show she'd run dry.

"Monomaniacal?" he offered stoically.

"Monomanical! That—oooh!" Plunging all ten fingers into her hair, she tore the ribbons from her scalp. Her bark-brown hair tumbled down obligingly. " 'I was informed you could be used for your _talent_, not your _tongue_.' What I could do to him would make him wish he never _had_ a tongue to say those things with!"

He had thought appreciatively of her characteristic fire before. Right now, Tenten was blazing. And Neji was beginning to feel singed too. He decided it would be best to stay quiet for now and let her simmer.

"I'll bet it was torture for him to contact the Godaime – a woman – to request assistance. What an idiotic…and he _leads _them! No wonder there are no women here." Without warning, she stopped being a pacing blur of red and white and rooted herself, facing him. "Did you know they keep their women in a whole separate village? Most shinobi never meet their daughters! And did you know—" She suddenly froze her speech. "Neji?"

He met her dark eyes with his pale ones, wishing he had broken command just once and warned her about the gender segregation prior to coming to the Rain Village. Why had he thought she would be anything less than morally outraged? It wasn't like he could blame her for her anger.

"You knew." Her eyes went wide. "You _knew _about these pig-headed alpha males and you never said anything?!"

"Tsunade-sama forbade me to tell you. I don't know why. Perhaps she thought it would interfere with your focus."

Neji saw too late that he had given the wrong answer. "My focus?" Tenten demanded. "How can anything interfere with my focus, Neji? Or did you not notice that _I'm not allowed to talk here_?"

He visibly winced. "Considering…I thought you performed well."

She gave a sharp bark of a laugh. "There was a performance, all right. Yours. 'She remains only because your family is so esteemed.' You should have told him the future leader of the Hyuuga is a woman. You degraded my position back there!"

"He would have sent you away!" he argued.

Her gaze sharpened, and she tossed a hateful look at the window, her hair falling forward to shield her eyes. Fittingly, it was pouring rain outside. "I'm not sure that would have been such a bad idea."

"What would you have had me do?" he cried, furious now himself. "Tell him you were my wife, say _you're _a Hyuuga too?"

The whole climate in the room changed with that question, but whether it was hot or cold Neji wasn't sure. He knew the way Tenten looked at him was making his skin prickle and burn at once. Slowly, he took a breath and saw her chest rise and fall with a deep inhalation as well. "Tenten…"

"It was my choice," she interposed quietly, "not to tell anyone." Undoing the first two buttons on her high-collared blouse, she revealed a thin chain from which a plain golden ring glinted jovially. It was identical to the one Neji wore beneath his own shirt. The first hint of a smile, sad, bloomed on her lips. "Only the Hokage knows still."

"Tenten." He went to her and in two strides she was in his arms, her face buried in his chest. "I'm not saying your decision was wrong. I'll do what you want me to. I'll tell them we're married if you think it will help."

She shook her head, her words muffled by the fabric of his shirt. "It won't. Then they _would _send me away, wouldn't they, where they keep their wives." He tightened his hold on her, and she sighed.

"You're more than just that," he assured her. "You're a capable kunoichi, a woman who—" A smooth finger put a stopper on his compliments.

"Still…" Looking up, her smile lost its sadness in exchange for something more spirited. "I _am _your wife." Circling his neck with his arms, she pulled him toward her until their lips met feverishly. "And I lied; going away would have been a horrible idea…"

His heart thundered with the storm outside as she maneuvered them into the adjacent bedroom. He loved this woman. And it was not because she was a talented kunoichi, not even because she also had a very talented tongue…

It was because she was Tenten, and she was all he had ever wanted from another person.

* * *

The early morning sun was a gold silk sheen over a very wet training ground. Neji took in the smell of it, feeling energized as he faced the one hundred men who would be learning the proper defenses for guarding a nation's border.

"I am Hyuuga Neji. Today, you will meet and begin training with your new, Konoha teacher." With a gesture to the side, Tenten stepped forward.

There were several murmurs and whispers among the many shinobi, above which Neji's voice promptly rose.

"And if your daimyo, Shioshi-sama, asks about the arrangement…" Looking at his wife, Neji gave a smile only Tenten could see. "Tell him that Tenten-san is indisputably in charge of our mission."

**The End**


	6. The Hierophant

_Dislaimer: We own nothing, as usual. _

_Author's Notes: Set early on the series, right after Lee battles Gaara during the Chuunin exams. Dedicated to Ness for putting up with my slow, slow writing. _

**Comparisons & Other Things You Don't Make**

By Goldberry

"The Hierophant"

Immediately after Lee's leg is shattered by Gaara of the Sand, Tenten sits by his hospital bed and reads to him. She brings a different book each day, some thick and dusty, others slim and new. She tells him about foreign princes and worlds of seawater and long adventures with friends. Most of all, she reads about heroes overcoming obstacles and in each one she makes the protagonist's name Lee.

Her Lee never moves, never wakes. The books start to make tall piles on the floor.

Standing at her shoulder, Neji looks down at her bent head, the clear black letters on the pages in front of her. He wants to make her stop – the nurses are pestering him, complaining about the mess and convinced Tenten is going to do herself harm. She, too, is supposed to be recovering.

However, when he opens his mouth to tell her these things, nothing comes out.

Tenten glances up, smiles briefly. "I'm alright."

He lets her be.

The next night he meets her there, leaning against a wall, arms crossed as their kunoichi reads aloud. Her voice drops and rises with her words, coloring in the details, and she pauses at the end of a chapter to search Lee's face.

Nothing.

She flips a page and goes on.

An hour later she finishes and closes the book. Neji comes to her side slowly, eyeing her pale face and the rings under her eyes.

"You should have been released days ago," he says. "Why are you doing this?"

Her fingers curl around the edges of the book in her lap. "Remember when we were eleven and I broke my arm falling out of that tree at the Academy?" He does. It is the only time he has ever seen her cry. "Lee went with me when I was taken to the medic. He stayed right by my side the entire time. I remember thinking that I wanted him to shut up, he was so distracting. All I wanted to do was focus on what was happening to me but he wouldn't stop." She laughs a little, softly. "I never even felt them set the bone."

There's a small moment of silence and then she finishes, whispers, "I can't let him focus."

Both of them have seen his x-rays. They know what such an injury means for their teammate.

"Do you really think he can hear you?" Neji asks, after a moment. His pale eyes try to find some sort of awareness on Lee's sleeping face.

Tenten leans the side of her head against Neji's hip briefly, a comforting pressure.

"I'd like to think so," she answers, and picks up another ragged volume.

* * *

Tenten is officially released from the hospital the next day, a result of Neji's irritation with the nursing staff and a quiet promise to her doctor that he would make sure Tenten took it easy the rest of the afternoon.

He sees her settled into the chair by Lee's bed, handing her a pillow and a blanket that she takes with an exasperated sigh. Once she is comfortable, he drops a slim paperback on her knees and she begins, her voice filling the room with a gentle sweetness.

Neji sits on the floor at her feet and leans back against her chair, closing his eyes.

When he opens them again, the sky is darkening and Tenten's book is on the floor. She's sleeping soundly, tucked into a corner of her chair. There's color on her cheeks and she seems to be resting peacefully. He won't wake her. She needs the rest.

He does pick the book up off the floor, returning it to the top of the nearest leaning tower of stories. His fingers then drift down the spines as he reads their titles, wondering if all of them belonged to Tenten or if she had borrowed them from somewhere. She had never struck him as the studious type and they trained too much to do a lot of recreational reading. When had she collected all these tales?

Neji chooses a book from a smaller pile and flips it open, glancing over the first page. He's a little unsure, but his voice is steady and low.

"The Second Hokage and the Bird King, by the Historian Osa Kaname. Chapter One…"

* * *

Tenten wakes to the Second Hokage having a spectacular duel with the Bird King. Neji's somber tone doesn't bring the story to life, but it has a soothing timbre that makes her body relax, her toes curling into the chair cushion. Neji is a silent person by nature so it's a rare treat to hear him reading aloud, the words strung together easily and precisely.

She closes her eyes again and listens to his tone rather than the words, feels the rhythm of the syllables in her chest. She drifts into his voice, feeling secure and heavy there, content. It's almost a painful disappointment when he finishes and she's pulled back to herself.

"Another one?" she asks hopefully, unsurprised to see that Neji isn't startled to learn she's awake. He's a genius. He knows everything.

His pearl-gray eyes watch her calmly for a moment. "No," he says, "it's getting late. It's time we went home."

She grumbles a little but takes the hand he offers, pulling herself out of her warm chair and folding the spare blanket. They leave everything as it is, only flipping off the lights as they go out. The nurses call goodnight and Tenten realizes she's slept a good part of the day and would probably sleep again when she gets home. She'd been more tired than she'd thought. Tomorrow, though, she would have to train. Neji had been very patient with her but she could tell he was getting restless practicing on his own.

Lee isn't the only one who needs her.

"Oi! Neji!"

Tenten startles and half turns, seeing Uzumaki Naruto running towards them. His face is scrunched together and he skids to a stop before them, panting. She doesn't know much about him, besides that he, too, will be fighting in the finals. She hopes he won't be paired with the boy at her side. As witnessed when he fought his own cousin, Neji was not one to be merciful. And by the looks of things, Naruto is still holding a grudge over what had happened with Hinata.

The blonde kid's eyes narrow at Neji's flat expression and he turns, directing his next question at Tenten instead. She wonders, though, if he even knows her name.

"Hey, how's Fuzzy Eyebrows doin'?" he asks. He kicks at a rock in the road and misses. "I heard he still hasn't woken up."

Tenten blinks at the nickname and glances at Neji before answering. "That's true, but I'm sure he'll come around soon. Lee is very strong."

"I know," Naruto almost mumbles, "That's why I wanted to fight him." He points a finger at her suddenly. "You tell him that, will ya? I'll come around to see him when he gets up!" And then he is off and running again, making a beeline for the ramen stand and leaving Tenten rather confused. When had Lee made such an impression on that kid?

"I didn't know they knew each other," she says aloud. Neji is frowning a little but he starts walking again without comment and she follows. She always does.

Two more streets and they stop to part ways. Tenten smiles up at him.

"See you at sunrise?"

"At the hospital," Neji replies, ignoring her look of surprise.

"But what about--?"

He's already turning away. "You want to be there when he wakes up, don't you?"

She wants to shout after him, ask him how he knows that, but it's clear that Naruto has put him in a rather arrogant frame of mind. Neji is a prodigy, after all, and they are a prickly bunch. It was really rather endearing, when it didn't make her want to strangle him.

She walks the rest of the way home on her own and fulfills her earlier guess by falling asleep the moment her head touches her pillow.

* * *

When Tenten arrives at the hospital the next morning, Neji is already there, reading silently. He looks up at her presence, marking his place with a finger, and she closes the door softly.

"Not reading aloud today?" she asks, choosing her words carefully. She'd enjoyed listening to him and didn't want to scare him off future readings.

"I think you should." His moon-colored eyes flicker over to Lee. "He likes it better when it's you."

She feels her eyebrows rise and can't help but ask, "How do you know?"

He goes back to his book. "His heart rate slows."

It's a moment before she processes that and realizes it makes sense. Neji and Lee are rivals, hearing Neji's voice must make Lee restless, while hers calms him.

"Maybe that's a bad thing," she comments. "If he gets too comfortable, he might stay asleep."

Neji turns a page. "It doesn't matter, he'll wake up today."

That was the second time he'd said that and again Tenten stops herself from questioning him. She'd placed her faith in Neji long ago.

Sitting down in her usual chair, she picks up the nearest novel and starts to read. The story is rather boring but she keeps going. An hour passes. Neji brings her a paper cup of water and she drinks gratefully, their fingers brushing as she hands it back. He sits down at her feet again, leaning back against the chair leg and she continues, a little distracted now by his nearness.

It's almost a relief when someone knocks on the door and opens it.

"Oh," says Haruno Sakura. "I…didn't realize. I'll come back later." She starts to back out the way she came, but Neji gets to his feet suddenly.

"That's not necessary. We were just going to take a walk." He's speaking smoothly, unruffled, and he gives Tenten a level look she understands to mean it's her turn to say something.

"Ah… right, just going to stretch our legs for a bit." She rises, letting her book fall into the creases of the chair. "Would you mind staying with him until we get back?"

Sakura looks about as bewildered as Tenten is but she nods agreeably. "Sure."

Neji and Tenten move out into the hallway and Tenten waits until the door is completely closed before turning a confused glare on her teammate.

"Neji, why did we just leave Lee with that girl? She almost got him killed in the Forest!"

Neji took her elbow, leading her a little further down the pristine corridor and momentarily making her forget how to breathe.

"She's his new goal," he replies calmly, and with a bit of distaste. "One he can't exactly reach if he's unconscious."

Tenten frowns. "So, when you said Lee would wake up today, you think it's Sakura that will do it?"

"I think she has the best chance."

Oddly, Tenten is a little hurt by this. _She _was Lee's teammate; shouldn't she be the one by his side? Hadn't she just spent three days endlessly reading to him in an attempt to bring him back? For Neji to believe that _Sakura_ would succeed where she had failed…

Tenten looks away but Neji's fingers touch her jaw, force her to look up at him. His gaze reads her like one of her books.

"Lee is an idiot," he says plainly, "Don't compare yourself to her."

Tenten's mind spins, her eyes widening at his firm words. Her body feels tight, every ounce of herself focused on Neji's hand under her chin. She's forgotten about Lee and Sakura, everything but the fact that they are standing very close and Neji hasn't pulled away.

It's a moment before she realizes he is waiting for something.

"Okay," she breathes and his hand falls away.

And, later, when they enter Lee's room to find him blinking sleepily up at Sakura's excited face, Tenten smiles and teases him and doesn't mind that she's not the only kunoichi in her friend's life.

She's not someone's goal.

She's someone's weapon.

**THE END.**


	7. The Lovers

_Notes: Set either at times uncovered in the real storyline or in the future. I've taken some liberties with the final outcome of the manga (read: I guessed). And there is spoiler potential here for the manga as well._

_Disclaimer: Berry and I still lack Naruto ownership. Maybe one day when we're rich. _

Shouldn't, Couldn't, Wouldn't

By Nessie

"The Lovers"

The day Neji was promoted to Jounin, Tenten was _pissed_. So pissed, in fact, that she could be seen releasing barrage after barrage of weapons, blunt and sharp, for three hours. Gai stood well back, able even in his at-times blinding optimism to know the difference when one needed a hug and when said potential hug recipient was willing to stab a would-be hugger with a remaining blade. Lee watched in pitying awe, absorbing his own disappointment so that it could be vented on an enemy in the next fight.

When Hyuuga Neji himself came by the open field later, presumably seeking a late afternoon training session (as though nothing special had transpired), he regarded her fiery eyes, angrily laboring breath, and mussed hair buns with his usual critical gaze. "Upset, are you?" he questioned coolly.

Tenten faced him, incredulity freshly painting over her tormented expression. "_What_?" She responded as if he declared her gender debatable.

Neji considered his team's kunoichi, her backdrop a summer sky and fully-dressed trees, their bark brown and chipped by the probably hundreds of weapons she had thrown at them. A tiny smirk graced his lips. "Nothing." He fell into the stance for his Jyuuken. She was only too happy to make a target of him.

Tenten was the anomaly of Team Gai, and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was female. Gai was normally held in doubt by his fellow ninja, Lee's training was brutally rigorous on a daily basis, and Neji carried the burden that ever Hyuuga branch family member endured. It was the cause of these things that they worked as hard as they did.

Tenten, with no known family, competent mastery of basic jutsu arts, and general approval from the Konoha community, could claim none of these as reasons to motivate her to work harder. And she longed for_justification_; not only recognition, but a reason to desire recognition.

Neji knew she had not expected to arrive at Jounin status before he had, and he knew that Tenten fully comprehended his unremitting drive to persevere within his clan. But he had been with his teammate on the day the Hokage, Tenten's former idol Tsunade, had taken Haruno Sakura as her apprentice. She had never said as much, but he was aware that Tenten had seen the event as a personal failure.

Just as he was aware that she considered his promotion one more achievement lost to someone else.

He knew he should say something, as her teammate; reassure her, get it out there. He believed in her abilities. And he realized that she was frustrated with herself, even scared that, because she didn't have the tendency to make leaps of progress in the way he and Lee did, her skills had already reached their plateau at age fifteen. Neji knew from their training that this was not the case, that she improved gradually but no less competently than he did. He continued to practice with her so that on the day she _did _acquire his level of strength, he would be able to defend against her lethal, sharp mastery.

Neji felt he should tell her all of this, if for no other purpose than to make her stop hurling things in Hyuuga-directed rage instead of personal motivation. And he knew that he would stay silent because he also felt he shouldn't destroy the neutral image he offered the world – including Tenten.

* * *

Their first S-rank mission alone together was very close to disastrous. Tenten, at last a Jounin, had never articulated as much, but Neji believed it intuitively. Lee had been hospitalized due to a gung-ho charge on the last assignment, which left Neji and Tenten to infiltrate a guerilla base in the Land of Lightning and interrogate the group's leader without the advantage of Lee's excellent speed.

Instead, Neji had to operate incognito as a member of the rebels until Tenten could break in, isolate the leader, and loosen his tongue at the point of a kunai or (if she was feel dramatic) her katana.

Their timing was off. Neji didn't know whose fault it was, and maybe it didn't matter whether Tenten made her move too soon, bursting into the one-story cabin using explosive tags, or Neji created a diversion too late. The outcome was that Neji woke from a lucky punch in the forest outside the Lightning border to find the guerilla leader bound to a tree by Tenten's rapidly diminishing chakra strings. He knew better than to ask her what she had done. He watched the way her arm muscles steadily trembled as she rinsed dried blood from her cold steel that evening as he took notes on the leader's quickly-surrendered intelligence.

There were only a few times in his life that Neji had felt worthless. Those of the Hyuuga clan were rarely without purpose. But he felt that way then, when he saw Tenten release the now-friendless man to the dark wild, her eyes as lifeless as those of the men she had slain. Neji had no idea what her thoughts were.

She came into their tent the next night on their return trip home, to take her turn to sleep and allow Neji his turn to keep watch. She half collapsed on the bedroll he occupied, and for a brief minute the warmth of her exhausted body met the tension of his, one of her hands lifted to curl into the cotton of his shirt. He felt her embarrassment in that moment, her apology, everything he too was experiencing but did not display. He realized how far they had come, what it meant to be adults who had undergone more than just a change of uniform or status title.

His retreat was gentle, but a retreat nonetheless. Then he went out and left her to sleep with moist eyelashes, because Neji couldn't bring himself to stay.

* * *

Uchiha Sasuke abandoned Hebi and returned to the village and, after the initial steps taken to ensure his good intent, rejoined what had once been called Team 7. It was almost as though Sasuke had never really left but had merely been absent, the way Uzumaki Naruto had when he'd trained with the Sannin Jiraiya.

Most surprising of all was that Haruno Sakura still held affection for the Uchiha. Neji and Tenten discovered this firsthand when Lee announced he was giving up his pursuit of Sakura's love. The event struck a chord with the Hyuuga, especially when he looked on as Tenten tried to persuade their friend differently.

"But I thought you were completely _bent_ on getting her to care about you, Lee! From when we were _thirteen_."

Lee fielded the statement with a sheepish look. "I...was, yes. But it's been ten years, hasn't it? I have no intention of interfering some someone else's happiness, especially if it directly affects Sakura-san's own."

Tenten sighed her disapproval of the situation. "You're way too complacent."

Neji agreed that twenty-three was a good age to come to terms with any relationship. He was still highly discomfited, however, when Lee asked not much later and quite out of the blue: "You're still in love with Tenten, Neji, aren't you?"

He was grateful he had already swallowed the tea the two men were having at lunch after a report to Tsunade, otherwise Neji suspected he might have actually choked on it. "Excuse me?" he demanded, his dignity dented but not lost.

Lee wiggled his eyebrows at him, not mischievously but in curiosity, which was a little odder. "Don't pretend like you never have been. We know you have. Gai-sensei and I confirmed it when you two came back from that S-rank mission and you were giving her puppy-dog eyes."

"I did _not_." But he partially activated Byakugan to check for eavesdroppers anyway, because Hyuuga Neji's love life (or lack thereof) was not simply something to be publicly discussed, and he was very close to forcibly depriving Lee of his capability of speech. "I was...concerned."

"But that was over two years ago, Neji! And the puppy-dog eyes remain!"

"Will you please," he gritted out lowly, "stop referring to me as having _puppy-dog_ eyes?" It was a threat rather than a request.

Lee drained the rest of his tea. "Fine. Deny it all you wish, but it's evident that you love her. You've been in love with her for_years_." And probably just to prove that the killing glare Neji was aiming at him had no effect, Lee added, "Though you've made as much progress as I ever did with Sakura. Which is to say, none."

Had they been on a training field, Neji would have pummeled Lee into the ground until his aching spine prevented him from laughing as he ridiculously did now. "She's my teammate."

The Beautiful Green Beast scoffed as they exited the tea shop together, his gait far more jovial than Neji's. "It's really too bad you feel that way. Tenten's been in love with you even longer than you have her. Of couse, _her_ feelings are far more _youthful_ than _yours_._"_

That physically stopped Neji, and Lee was actually a number of paces ahead before he noticed Neji was not with him.

"What's wrong?"

"Where is she?"

Lee grinned, the too-white teeth gleaming in the sun. "Don't tell me–"

"I won't. Now where is she?"

"At home. She said she wanted to take a day to repair her..." Lee's eyes went wide when Neji ran past him. "Weapons..."

As the youth-obsessed Jounin had promised, Tenten was on the roof of her apartment complex, likely having come up there to work since it would be too hot inside. She was armed with a small stone wheel on a pedal-controlled mechanism. He didn't bother to study the object any further than to comprehend she was in the process of sharpening blades of various lengths and widths. Seeing them all spread out on the roof nearly gave him pause. He forgot, sometimes, the sheer number of her weapons.

"Tenten."

The brunette kunoichi looked up, her eyes going wide to see Neji standing on the edge of the rooftop, looking down at where she sat working the pedal of her wheel. "What's going on, Neji?" Sparks flew from the grind, the reflection of them in her eyes like drops of gold that faded in moments.

"I'm not going to let you be in love with me."

Brown eyes widened, and Neji clenched both fists at his sides. He hadn't intended to say it like that. Now that he had, Tenten looked somewhere between hurt and irritated.

"_What_?" Her tone was identical to the one she'd used on the day he became a Jounin.

Neji folded his arms so she could not see the way his chest moved from his erratic breathing. "Lee says you're in love with me. What I mean is...I don't...I would not let us continue this way."

Some of the emotion seeped from her gaze. "I understand, Neji."

"You do?"

"Yes," said Tenten, getting to her feet as the wheel slowed to a stop. "You don't want any hindrances." Her eyes slanted somewhat downward. "And you find my presence, what...distracting?"

Had Gai and Lee been in the vicinity, Neji was sure he'd have received Konoha kicks to the face by now. "No," he told her seriously, desperate to correct any damage rather than further it. "I'm saying...Tenten, you aren't the only one in love."

Her posture slackened now, and she fiddled with the round hilt of a kunai, as though something she had expected was newly confirmed. "Oh. I see. Who is she?"

Who was—_ Oh._ Finally recognizing the misunderstanding between them, Neji didn't bother to hide his smirk. Really, Tenten was very amusing sometimes, but he did wish she would be less kind to him at times. "It's you."

A similar "oh" look came upon her face, and Tenten dropped the kunai just as he stepped toward her to pull her in for a kiss that had been put off for two years.

"Does this mean you're my lover?" Tenten asked with a grin when they broke apart for air.

Neji inclined his head so that the bridge of his nose gently brushed the skin at her temple. "Of course not. It means you're mine."

And he wouldn't allow that to be changing anytime soon.

**The End**


	8. The Chariot

_Author's Notes: I blame the weather here. :)  
_

**MERKABAH**  
"The Chariot"

Written by Goldberry

The snow falls in fat, pristine flakes that whirl in the air, carried by a troublesome wind that rises and falls erratically. The air is frigid and heavy against her, a weight that dries her skin and cracks her lips with exposure. The gray cloak she's wearing helps a bit and she holds the flaps of it close to her body, protecting her hands. In such weather, it's most important that her hands are nimble, warm. They are her lifeline, her defense in that rocky countryside, all alone. The fingerless gloves Gai-sensei gave her protect her palms, but she must hide her fingers tight against her ribs and the cool fabric of her clothes. Already, her weapons have become dangerous to handle, the metal so cold that it tears at her skin. She tucks her cloak more firmly around her and goes on.

It's late afternoon, the sky grey with winter and snow, and the land climbs upwards, rocky and desolate. It's beautiful, too, with its high waterfalls and icy lakes, but Tenten longs for the warmth and comfort of Fire Country. The Land of Water has never been one of her favorites, especially in this northernmost region where the mist and snow make everything dreary and wet.

And hazardous.

Moving fast over the countryside safely is almost impossible. The landscape itself hinders her. The mist hides perilous pitfalls and hidden drops and the biting wind won't let her rest. She forces herself to stumble on, moving as quickly as she can, as silent as a wraith. Two more days and she will reach the border and a boat will be waiting to take her and her teammates back home.

Tenten touches the scrolls against her side briefly and hurries.

Just as night is falling, her pursuers catch up with her. She lights up the encroaching darkness with hand-bombs and tagged kunai and takes down a grove of trees before she's able to lose them, running raggedly over the terrain, her hair loose and tangled, breath misting in front of her lips. She does not stop, not even when it becomes too dark to see clearly and she trips continually over fallen branches and the edges of rocks half-hidden in the earth. The Mist-nin would not give up until they reached the shoreline and she could bet _they_ would not be stopping to rest so she can't either.

Instead, she draws stiff slips of paper from beneath her cloak and flings them at passing trees, smirking crookedly to herself at the surprise she is leaving her enemies. She readies more kunai, wincing at the brutal feel of her weapons beneath numb fingers, and checks the scrolls once more for reassurance. It is these that the Mist-nin are after. Twin scrolls bearing the instructions for a single forbidden technique. Tenten has not looked at them. Their mission had been to extract the scrolls only and return them to the feudal lord of the Land of Waves, from where the scrolls had been stolen from in the first place. She does not care to know what power is in them, only that they are still safe.

Hours pass. Her lungs ache with every freezing breath and she can't feel her feet though her legs keep moving, carrying her closer and closer to her goal. Her canteen is empty and she knows that though she has avoided stopping, this is something she cannot ignore. It is easy to follow the sounds of water to a small, rushing stream carving its way down the mountainside. She comes to a stop near its bank, hesitant and wary, exhausted now that she has slowed down enough to actually feel it.

The land is dark around her, the clouds preventing little moon or starlight to illuminate her surroundings. She breezes among the shadows to the water's edge and kneels to fill her canteen, taking a quick drink of the icy water, her body shivering as the cold spikes down her middle.

Abruptly an arm curves around her shoulders tightly and a hand covers her mouth from behind. She drops the canteen, reaching into her cloak to either draw a weapon or toss the scrolls into the dark water, ruining them instantly.

Neither option is necessary as a low voice whispers near her ear.

"It's me."

The tension leaves her body, her shoulders easing as Neji releases her and she turns to get her first glimpse of him in days.

He's wearing a black cloak, almost invisible to her tired eyes, the hood pulled up over his long hair. There's frost on the fabric, a lacy glittering of snow that says he's been traveling with speed just as long as she has. In contrast, his skin is stark white, his eyes as colorless as the mist that is forming among the silent trees. He looks tired, she thinks, but his hand is firm when he reaches out to grip her elbow.

It takes her a moment to realize she is weaving on her feet.

"Are you alright?" he asks, the words almost soundless, veiled in night and very conscious that they were not hidden from prying eyes. She nods once, wearily, and bends to pick up her canteen. Neji releases her, letting her turn to fill it again and cap it securely. Then he lifts a hand and signs for her to follow him. She does, managing somehow to stay just a step behind as he vanishes back into the cover of the trees. They travel a little farther from the stream, two ghosts barely seen as the snow begins to fall in earnest, blowing into her cloak no matter how tightly she holds it.

Thankfully, Neji stops in front of a well-hidden screen of pine boughs that he had leaned up against a large tree. It made a sort of shelter – a small one – but Tenten is glad of any kind of relief from the cold. Her teammate pulls away one of the branches and motions for her to go first. She bends down and slips through the snowy opening, feeling immediately the relief of being out of the wind and into the muted dark of their small hideaway. Neji enters a second later, pulling the branches back to cover the entrance securely. She makes room for him and they sit pressed together, their backs against the bark of the tree.

"How long have you been here?" she asks, wincing at the sound of her hoarse voice. It's the first time she's spoken aloud in days. Neji takes his own canteen out and warms it between his hands before giving it to her. She takes another drink, this one going down easier, luke-warm.

"A few hours," he says, watching closely as she hands the water back to him. "The Byakugan showed me where we might cross paths."

She rubs her eyes, feeling a little sleepy now that she is getting a bit warmer. "I left Lee almost three days ago. He was taking the path over the lake. The enemy split to follow us both."

"The scrolls?"

She looks at him. "I have the real ones. Lee took the fakes."

Neji nods. He would be taking the real scrolls from her when they parted again and she would continue on with the imitations that he carried. This was the plan they had devised to get the scrolls to safety, trading the real ones between themselves so as to confuse their would-be captors, tag-teaming their way over Water Country. If one of them _was_ taken, the chances of them actually having the true scrolls was slim.

"Your chakra is low," Neji comments neutrally, still watching her. "You can't travel any further without rest."

His words are sounding a little muffled to her, her eyes wanting to close on their own. She understands what he is implying though and she shakes her head. "No, it's too dangerous for us to stay together. If we're caught…" She trails off, already half-asleep where she sits. She hears Neji exhale quietly and then his arm curves around her back and her head comes to rest against his shoulder as he reaches around her to pull their cloaks together for warmth.

"An hour or two will make no difference," he says, "If they come within my divination, I will know."

* * *

They wake in the same moment, pulled from sleep by some of Tenten's traps exploding. She stiffens against Neji's side as he activates the Byakugan, turning his head to focus on their backtrail. 

"It's time to go," he says.

There's nothing to pack, nothing to take but what they're already carrying. In the stifling dark, Tenten presses the scrolls into Neji's hands and takes the fake ones from the pocket of his cloak.

"I'll slow them down," she tells him. She can't see his expression but his fingers catch hers for the briefest of moments.

"See you at the boat," he murmurs, and then they're dashing out into the snow and cold, the impact of the freezing air hitting Tenten like a slap in the face. She grits her teeth and forces her aching body to stand, watching Neji disappear ahead. More of her tags explode, wild bursts of fire, and she takes more from her pockets and lines the trees around the river. Then she takes invisible wire and makes a fine, deadly cobweb while she can still feel her fingers. She lines the strings with more exploding tags and summons makibishi, littering the ground with their sharp spikes.

Afterwards, she tucks her cloak around her body again and heads in Neji's direction, altering her path slightly so that it diverges from his. He would be meeting up with Lee to change scrolls once more before they would all converge at the boat – hopefully well ahead of their pursuers.

Saying a mental wish for their safety, she heads for the shore and the way back home.

* * *

When she gets to the beach, no one is there. 

The boat is at the dock, little more than a skiff, bobbing gently with the incoming tide, but neither Neji nor Lee are anywhere to be found. She stays behind the tree line, keeping her body absolutely still as she processes the situation. She's sees no other signs of life, the shore empty but for the cold rocks and white tide. It might have been an ambush but for the lack of chakra she feels.

She spends the night in the hollow of a fallen tree and wakes with dirt in her hair and frost on the blades of her kunai. She is still alone and time is creeping up on her. She hasn't had a proper meal since she and Lee parted ways and so her energy is low, her mouth parched from the icy water she drinks. Looking at the vacant beach, she knows she has a choice. She can either wait a few more days for her teammates and hope they arrive, or she can go back and search for them, possibly help them if they'd fallen into trouble. There is a third choice – take the boat and go – but since she does not have the true scrolls, she doesn't even consider it. If it were Neji, she would want him to leave, fulfill their mission, but she's only a decoy. She can't leave, not without the scrolls and her boys.

She turns and flows back into the forest, a swath of gray in a misty world. She angles her path this time, trying to find Neji's route. She travels all day and the land is darkening when she finally stumbles upon it.

Her own pursuers had followed Neji, not her. She hides herself above the edge of their camp, high in the canopy, and watches them. Neji is in their midst, tied to a tree with rope bearing paper seals. His body is limp and there is blood on the side of his face, dripping out from underneath the silver of his forehead protector. His long hair has come lose from its tie and hangs like a curtain, shielding his expression. She can tell from his posture though that he is unconscious. How they managed to catch him, she doesn't know. Neji is not unbeatable, of course, but it's rare – very rare – for an enemy to corner him.

There are craters nearby that speak to the battle, souvenirs of Neji's Kaiten, and she sees several ninja out cold under blankets, their chakra sealed.

She feels no chakra from Neji. The lack comforts her, as it gives her a reason for his unconsciousness.

She pulls one of her own scrolls from its pouch at her waist, gripping the end with stiff fingers. Calmly, she lets it unfurl, the opposite end unraveling over the tree branch and down towards the ground. She touches the symbols written there and pulls two fuuma shuriken from the parchment. She sends their inky, black blades whizzing towards the camp and follows close behind.

Surprise is on her side, and the ninja who survived Neji's attacks are sleepy and slow to respond. Her windmill shuriken slice the first two almost in half before they're even aware they're under attack. She takes them with a kunai to their heart, moving past them like a white phantom, breathing ice and mist. She counts five more ninja ahead of her, between her and Neji, and reaches up to catch one of her returning fuuma shuriken.

By the time she reaches the last, she has left a bloody trail of bodies behind her and she can no longer feel her hands. She's made of cold metal now, the great curved fangs of her black fuuma held before her eyes. The last of her enemies responds by lifting a katana to Neji's neck.

"Give me the _real_ scrolls," he says, "or I'll cut his throat."

She laughs, a bare, breathy sound that is really no sound at all. "Cut his throat and I'll kill you and keep the scrolls."

The ninja's jaw hardens and she thinks _he's just a kid_ before her second fuuma shuriken impales itself into his back and he staggers forward, blood welling over his lips. His katana falls into the snow at his feet a second before he does.

It takes her precious minutes to untie Neji from the tree, her fingers bleeding as she works at the frozen rope. His body finally falls forward and she catches him awkwardly, half-kneeling in order to position him on her back, his arms pulled limply over her shoulders. She smiles to herself, thinking he will be embarrassed to have been carried in such a way, before she gathers what's left of her energy in order to shoulder his weight.

She leaves the clearing as it is, unable to spare the energy to hide their tracks. She travels slowly, using only a thin cord of chakra to sustain her legs and arms but even that fails after a few hours. Neji is heavy and she has spent too many days on the far side of exhaustion.

She reaches the beach just as the sun is beginning to rise, walking with halting steps out onto the grey sand. The waves crash and a bird cries and Lee is running towards her, his face stark with worry. He calls her name and her expression eases.

"Finally," she says, and collapses.

* * *

The first thing she notices is that she is warm. 

It almost hurts, this light feeling of _not freezing_ and her eyebrows draw together before she opens her eyes, blinking slowly in the dim light. She feels heavy, as if she hasn't moved in hours, and her mouth is dry again. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat and tries to sit up. A bandaged arm around her middle tightens, stopping her.

"You should be resting," Neji's voice says near her ear. She turns her head slightly to find him lying on his stomach next to her, one arm over her waist, his eyes closed. They are both covered with a plethora of blankets and Neji's long hair pools in the ripples of the fabric. He, too, sounds warm and lethargic, muddled by long hours of cold and dark.

"Neji," she whispers, "are you alright?"

She remembers reaching the beach but nothing afterwards.

He cracks one pearl-white eye at her briefly. "You're the one who almost killed yourself." There's no anger in his tone, nor judgment, but she feels the need to defend herself anyway.

"I couldn't leave you behind," she tells him quietly. They look at each other for a long moment and then Neji's closes his eyes again, and his forehead comes to rest against her shoulder. He doesn't say anything but Tenten knows.

She smiles carefully and shuts her eyes as well, and outside the snow keeps falling.

**THE END.**


	9. Justice

_Author's Notes:This one's a bit more on the mature side due to violent imagery and adult thought processes. Just a warning for those prone to squick._

Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto and are making no profit from this fan fiction.

**Heart Weighing**

By Nessie

"Justice"

Tsunade began by tossing two photographs on the surface of her desk, facing them away from her so that Neji and Tenten could see what they depicted. Leaning forward, she propped her chin on her loosely-clasped hands, and waited unsmilingly for a reaction.

Fingers deft with any kind of steel and several other materials lifted the two photos. Dark brown eyes examined the frontal image of a man from the shoulders up. Narrowed, dark blue eyes dominated his oval-faced shape, lips tightly smiling below. Reddish-brown hair hung down to his shoulders, straight as a board and unremarkable but for the color. The second image was the same man at profile view. In this a zigzagging, pink scar upon the left temple could be seen, but that was seemingly the only difference.

"Who is this, Tsunade-sama?" asked Tenten, holding the pictures up and slightly to the side so that the man standing ramrod straight at the wall behind her could take a look. Even without his Byakugan activated, Neji could see them perfectly well from there.

"Takuya Kiyomori," the Fifth Hokage said, "is the alleged leader of a group that has been taking advantage of a small village unaffiliated with ninja affairs just between the borders of Waterfall and Earth. Takuya's organization deals mostly with the transport of goods considered banned in most countries, such as opium. He suffers the occasional rivalry war, but his connections among various governments keep him safe from intervention by the daimyos. The people in the village are terrified of him, and rightly so. He's been known to publicly torture and kill anyone protesting his occupation."

She took a minute to evaluate the responses of the two Konoha ninja she had summoned to her office even though it was past sunset and mission calls were usually distributed during the day. The truth of the matter was that Tsunade had required the better part of the afternoon to decide which man/woman partnership would receive this S-rank assignment. Her options had fallen between Yamanaka Ino paired with Inuzuka Kiba, although they were not originally from the same team, or Hyuuga Neji and Tenten. Tsunade knew when the only reactions to her target description was a slight incline of the head from the Hyuuga and a slow, long intake of breath from his teammate that she had decided correctly. This mission required delicacy, thought prior to every action, and absolutely no impulsiveness; things that Yamanaka and Inuzuka, though useful in their own rights, could not claim.

Neji and Tenten, however, were Jounin perfectly suited to the task ahead.

The calm shinobi spoke up. "If the villagers are so frightened, why would they take the risk in coming here to request our assistance?"

"Takuya's business in Fire is very limited due to restrictions on exchange in this country. While he does have men stationed further east, this region remains untouched by his – ah – enterprise. The three villagers who approached me this morning are farmers who do business regularly in Konoha, so traveling here would hardly arouse suspicion."

Tenten folded her arms, nodding approvingly of the tactic. "Will escorting them back to their village be a part of our duties?"

"No, the farmers left as soon as I told them I would send a squad." Reaching into her desk, Tsunade handed the bun-haired brunette a thick scroll detailing their mission along with directions to the village. "You should probably know that our clients are very poor and could not exactly afford our services. I accepted their request partly because I don't support the tyrannical control of civilians." And because Tsunade knew what it was to lack financial comfort, but she did not say as much to her subordinates. "You will be paid by funding saved from special ANBU missions. All the same, I'd appreciate it if you kept the matter quiet from the council."

She was given no objection and concluded by telling them to depart at eleven the next morning after getting plenty of sleep. "No early training," she ordered Neji.

A little irritated (there were few things Neji resented more than the interruption of his routine), he inquired with flawless respect, "Why so early?" Rising so long after dawn was uncustomary not only to him, but to every ninja in Konoha.

"Read my scroll," Tsunade said simply and watched them both bow. As Tenten was joining Neji to leave, she called across the room, "And by the way, have you set your wedding date yet?"

The question caught them off-guard. Tenten turned and somewhat sheepishly answered, "We've been considering next spring." Neji was silent, but his stance had lost some of its rigidity.

Tsunade grinned at her. "I'll have Shizune mark my schedule."

* * *

The reason for their commanded oversleeping, it turned out, was due to the covert nature of their mission. Neji and Tenten were posing as civilian night owls for the duration of their stay in the farmers' village, a little place nestled between the lands of Earth and Waterfall and padded by miles and miles of crop fields surrounding it. Tenten would have called it peace, but then again, a disruption of the village's peace was hers and Neji's only reason for their presence here.

They booked two separate rooms at the inn on the far side of the village, but they would, as always, be using only one of them for sleeping in. The other would be an office of sorts. They had fallen into this tradition of secrecy three years ago, at twenty-one. There had been no talk of marriage at the time, only a mutual need to seize whatever moments they had. Neji's proposal came later. It went unsaid, but both of them were at times surprised to have lived this long.

Back in the center of town, the two split up for the initiation of their mission. And work began.

Tenten sat by herself at a small round table in the center of a teahouse where Takuya Kiyomori's organization was said to base their operations. In a dress of black silk detailed with purple, Tenten sipped at a cup of sake watered down by a vial concealed in one of her long sleeves. Her hair was free of its tight buns, only the front strands gathered at the base of her head while the rest trailed past her shoulders in gentle, dark waves.

Ankles crossed neatly beneath her chair, she seemed relaxed enough, this notion aided by the slight smile on her lips. But in truth, Tenten was bothered by the instructions Tsunade had written for her and Neji. The farmers had specified that they wanted Takuya stopped, not killed. While Konoha ninja usually attempted to bring in more bodies to be jailed rather than buried, their professions were of extremely high risk, and deaths happened. Trying to detain Takuya for the wrath of the villagers would be more difficult than simply taking him out to prevent any further tribulation – especially if Takuya's organization was large. It made Tenten wish Lee had been assigned to this mission as well. The younger Beautiful Green Beast excelled at making a distraction of himself. Since their team was only a duo this time, it was up to Tenten to fill his duties. Hence the short, tight dress.

In the poorly lit teahouse, Tenten could see Neji as he came into her line of vision through a haze of opium smoke from cracked and chipped bowls at adjacent tables. Dressed in mainly gray and black civilian garb considerably more expensive than anything worn by a resident of Konoha, the Hyuuga appeared to be just another patron of the clearly amoral teahouse. His pitch black hair was secured at the nape of his neck and glided behind him as he walked. Unused to seeing him so well clad, Tenten had to remind herself that she was not sitting there for the purpose of gawking at her fiancée.

Sipping again at her sake, she murmured, "Seen anything?" Her voice was carried to him by a microscopic device planted into the artificial amethyst set in a choker at her throat.

"There's a man of note," Neji's voice sounded in her ear by means of a bud of technology settled in the cartilage, imperceptible to the untrained eye.

"Takuya?"

"No. He's staring at you rather intently."

She actually felt a number of stares bearing various meanings and asked, "He may not suspect anything. Maybe he thinks I'm charming or beautiful...or both." Another dainty sip of sake.

"The chances of that are fairly low."

Tenten leaned back in her chair and remained externally indifferent, although inside was another matter. "Is that so?"

"Well, considering I saw him kissing another man in the bathroom when I was in there, I choose to adhere to my analyzation." Neji's tone did not waver from prosaic for the duration of his explanation.

Tenten utilized every ounce of the lessons she had received on controlling her emotions to allow a small twitch of lips to suffice for the laughter that threatened to erupt. "I see," she relented. Feeling playful (a side effect, perhaps, of the secondhand intake of opium), she inched her chair back until she was certain Neji could see the expanse of her legs. There was a single catch in his breath that echoed through her ear. She tried not to feel too smug about it.

Tenten played the scene, gleaning attention of the toughs in the room so Neji could observe and listen in with his eyes – he was proficient at the art of lip-reading – to the exchanges delivered in undertones.

At one point, a woman in a pale blue kimono carrying a bowl of opium approached her. "Do you care to try it?" she asked sweetly as though she were promoting a new genus of tea leaf.

"Oh." The kunoichi hadn't actually expected to be offered what was sold here and realized the stupidity of that. "No, thank you. Not tonight," she added, hoping the afterthought helped her sound as though she were familiar with this kind of place.

The server only bowed respectfully, her short black hair shifting. "As you wish. Enjoy your visit and please, return again soon." She moved off fluidly to entice another customer.

Well, she approved of the service here, she supposed. But Tenten was growing frustrated. Even though she could distract several of the men who were apparently supposed to be looking out for people just like Neji with little more than a flick of her wrist as she poured sake, they were both out of their element.

She wanted action, a chance to use the blades strapped horizontally against her pelvis (her hemline didn't obscure anything lower).

"Found him," Neji reported at last and switched his position.

Tenten wished she could go eavesdrop too, but when a particularly violent-eyed piece of muscle ambled in her direction, she decided it would be more important to keep him occupied and cover Neji. She aimed her smile in the big guy's direction, and he half-sat, half-stumbled into an adjacent chair.

Neji's signal eventually came, just a short "shhh" in her ear, and Tenten knew he was ready for her to join him by the exit. Tenten thought fast, sending Takuya's bodyguard off to fetch her another order of sake before darting away. She asked no questions until the pair was outside. This late, the streets of the village were unlit and ghostly in their quiet.

"What did you get?" Tenten hadn't actually seen Takuya. To glance around for a familiar face would have broken her character of a stranger.

His colorless eyes were narrowed. "Nothing yet. I wasn't able to get close enough to him before he left the teahouse. I did hear from one of his men that they were going to the east side of town." He led her around the teahouse building in hopes of cutting them off.

Tenten slipped a dagger from beneath her dress, just in case. As they ran around the perimeter of the wide-structured teahouse, thunder rolled above them. Lightning soon followed, but there was thus far no rain.

When they emerged in an alley where Takuya had been anticipated, Neji and Tenten were met by the sight of blank walls flanking empty space. No one occupied the alley, let alone their target for this mission. Meaning one thing: he had escaped. Unintentionally.

Upon this realization, the rain joined its brothers of nature and fell hard.

* * *

"Their logic is flawed," said Neji as they returned to their room later, only an hour or two before daybreak. "I can understand the image the villagers here have of carrying out their own benign revenge, but the longer it takes us to incapacitate Takuya surreptitiously, the longer they must suffer his interference."

Tenten listened supportively, as she was prone to do when Neji went on one of his tactical rampages. It was his way of dealing with mission frustration. His heart was never heavier than when they made no progress. "What do you think would be better?" She bent over the rug by the door and squeezed rain water from her hair.

"An improvement to the mission as a whole," said Neji, "would be to dispatch a few of Takuya's men and than abduct Takuya himself while he investigates the matter."

"These people wouldn't know about such strategies." Tenten disliked indirect approaches as much as he did, but she remembered that they were hired and thus obligated to side with their clients. "The employees at the teahouse didn't even pick up on the fact that we weren't with Takuya's group. They aren't astute enough for things like this. They just want control given back to them." Straightening once she was satisfied her hair no longer dripped, Tenten approached him near the bed, sitting on one side to remove her choker and ear bud, placing them on the night stand. "Their fields look nice, though."

From behind her, Neji's hand fell on her shoulder. The purple and black silk, quite possibly ruined from the rain, had slipped out of position, and his fingers found bare skin. As quickly as he had begun, Neji now seemed to be done speaking of their mission. He replaced his hand with his lips.

Tenten angled her head back, and the Hyuuga, encouraged, ran short kisses over the width of her neck before she halted him with a palm at his chest. Turning to look at him, she said, "We'll have to make better progress tomorrow. I'm sure there's a limited time before our cover cracks and they break us apart. This isn't exactly a hot spot for people looking for fun."

He nodded, agreeing with her but disinclined to vocalize it right now. Fine, Tenten thought, as long as her words went through. Anyway, she was beginning to grow very interested in what he was doing with his mouth...

* * *

They repeated their strategy the next night. Tenten sat at another table in another dress (this one not silk as it had rained for the better part of the day) while Neji meandered for information. This time her hair was entirely unbound. Again the woman in the kimono came to her with the smoking bowl, but Tenten played as though she were here for the sake and the ambience rather than the opium.

The woman paused in her duties long enough to tell Tenten her name, Nami, and to offer any help she could while Tenten was in the village. Tenten considered the possibility of Nami's involvement in Takuya's group but was more certain that the young woman had accepted the state of things in her village more readily than others and was just trying to make her way. The smile she gave Nami was genuine.

Neji's voice whispered in her ear through the device she wore again, and Tenten knew he must have been watching from a distance, waiting for Nami to go before contacting her. "Takuya is in a private room in the south end of the shop. I was able to stay outside the door long enough to hear him tell several men that plans to remove all of the residents from this village are underway. It seems he wishes to expand his base to the entire area instead of this teahouse alone."

Tenten sipped her watery sake to ask, "What would be the point of that? It's hardly inconspicuous, considering his business."

"I think so too. Either he's careless or there's something we're missing. And I doubt he's careless."

"Overconfident, then?"

"Maybe. Or perhaps he's edged the underground market enough to afford indiscretion."

Tenten didn't like so many variables. Reconnaissance was Nara Shikamaru's forte. If Tsunade had sent him and Ino on this one, things may have been handled by now, although Tenten could see why they were picked. Shikamaru didn't fit in places like this, and Ino was...well...shrill.

She told herself to think positive, that this experience would be good for them. If they succeeded.

"They've left," Neji said, interrupting her train of thought. "Let's go. We'll take the secondary exit this time."

She did as he suggested, meeting him in a darkened corridor reserved for employees. They hurried out an unmarked door that took them into the alley of last night, saving them the time of skirting the whole building.

Tenten started to run out, but Neji grabbed her suddenly and pressed her back against the rough wall of the alley, his lips crushing hers. Shocked, she struggled on reflex – Neji was never so demanding with her. And they were in the middle of working! When she attempted to push him away, to get back to their task, he grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head with one hand.

Then Tenten heard the low tones near the mouth of the alley. A sidelong glance spotted reddish-brown hair, Takuya talking to an unidentified man. Realization dawned as Tenten remembered that she had been watched the night before, possibly suspected, and Neji was maintaining their covers by preventing her from rushing onto the scene. To anyone nearby, they looked like two young people out of the opium teahouse, too absorbed in each other to notice anything going on.

Tenten shut her eyes and kissed him back but listened to the conversation occurring mere yards away.

"...told you to get rid of the owner of the inn, didn't I, Ohira-san?"

"Y-yes. But I couldn't, there were people around!"

"It's an inn. There's going to be people around. So," continued the threatening tone of Takuya's voice, "the smart thing to do, Ohira-san, would be to lead the innkeeper away from the people, _then_ get rid of him."

Tenten recalled the kindly man who had given them their rooms. Gray-haired and stooped, he would be defenseless if assaulted. Her hands tightened around Neji's back. He switched angles to peer out of the corner of his eye at the proceedings.

"I...I'll do it, Takuya-sama! Please, give me a second chance!"

"The thing is, that _was _your second chance. Remember?"

"Yes, I know, it's just...this time, I _will_ kill him for you!"

"That's what you promised me last time, Ohira-san. And you'll agree that a man who does not keep his word cannot be trusted."

"Please, please..._plea—_" His third begging was promptly cut off. Tenten placed the sound, metal burying itself in wood. Next came the slam of a door, and then a few seconds of silence.

Neji pulled himself away from Tenten, both breathing heavily from the kisses as much as from what they had overheard. He touched her hand, and that was permission to go on. They ran together from the alley and emerged to find no one there, as before.

"Gone," Tenten bit out. Her hands curled into shaking fists.

"Tenten," Neji murmured, calmer by contrast, "look."

She aimed her hateful gaze at the door he pointed to. It was attached to the next building, and at first she presumed it as Neji's guess for where Takuya and his three-man entourage had disappeared. But a closer inspection showed that her fiancée was not regarding the door itself but rather the dark, steady stream of blood running out from under the door.

Cautiously approaching with him, she stood at the ready while Neji yanked open the door. The sight promptly broke her hardened expression and turned it into a blend of disgust and remorse. Upon the door hung a middle-aged man, the unfortunate Ohira, in the position he had supposedly endured for the entire confrontation with Takuya. Blood poured down his front from where a kunai had been plunged into his heart.

It seemed not all of Takuya's murders were performed in public.

Neji stood unmoving for a moment, looking at the corpse, its eyes rolled down, its mouth slackened. The attack had been heartless, yes, but also without technique and certainly without any courage. When he faced Tenten, his eyes were already filled with the cold acknowledgment of a shinobi who did not prevent an undesirable outcome in his mission.

"Our work is unacceptable," he said lowly, and Tenten nodded once.

"Not at all!" shouted a voice from a fair distance away. Both turning to face its source, Neji and Tenten saw Takuya watching them with at least fifty feet between them. All at once, twenty men surrounded them, serving as a barrier between the Konoha ninja and Takuya. "I think you've performed splendidly so far!"

The alley took on a deadening silence like held breath.

Ten men for each of them to get to Takuya. The odds weren't horrible; each person in Team Gai was accustomed to taking on a large quantity of enemies at the same time, and these followers of Takuya weren't even shinobi. Tenten saw the large vicious-eyed man from last night. But they were all clearly bent on their demise, and she and Neji were supposed to keep everyone alive.

That restriction made things considerably more challenging.

Before anyone initiate combat, a lithe woman wrapped in silk appeared in the door over which Ohira's blood dripped. She was looking down, lifting the hem of her kimono, and failing to fully notice the scene ahead of her. "Takuya," Nami said, "did you—"

Her question was prematurely ended when Neji leapt forward and dragged her out of the doorway into the street, Ohira's blood inevitably staining her silken socks. She cried out as the Hyuuga clenched one hand in her short hair and held her in front of him, forcing her to lean slightly forward.

"Neji!" Tenten's eyed widened. It was unlike Neji to make use of a civilian, and using her as a shield was not only beyond him but went against the practices of Konoha ninja. "What are you—"

"Tenten, come close," he said. Neji waited until she hesitantly obeyed before calling out over the heads of their would-be assailants. "Are you going to having your men attack us with your leader standing here?"

Oh, thought the kunoichi. She turned her brown eyes to Takuya, who had frozen, unsure of what to do in this interesting turn of events.

It was Nami who spoke first – yelled, rather. "Takuya! How could you let this happen?" Her eyes trailed frantically to Tenten. "You!"

Neji's behavior now made sense. Apparently he had discovered more than he'd initially let on, such as the fact that Takuya was not the true leader of the opium organization but instead did the bidding of Nami, who was.

"Nami-sama, I'm...I..." Through his faltering, Takuya continued to appear clueless as to how to respond to their predicament. "I didn't know you would be coming out here," he told her weakly.

"Do you think that's good enough, idiot?!"

"N-no, Nami-sama!"

Neji interjected icily, "You didn't answer my question."

Takuya looked hastily around, as though the answer was written upon a wall somewhere. When he did not find it, he called off his men, and all twenty of them retreated back into the teahouse, leaving Takuya and Nami alone with Neji and Tenten.

Neji handed the struggling but altogether unsuccessful Nami to Tenten, who held three senbon between the knuckles of her right hand and pointed them at the crime leader's neck. She couldn't help but feel a little badly for restraining someone she had originally taken for sincere but then quickly chastised herself. This was the world she had chosen after all, a world of deceit from friends and foes.

"What do you hope to accomplish?" Takuya asked as Neji moved out of the alley. "Even if you killed Nami-sama, I will still be here to continue her trade."

Tenten let her eyes go as sharp and deadly as her weapons. "Then I will simply have to kill you as well." Her voice assured him she could manage the feat before he could run away; there was no harm in letting them believe there deaths were impending, even if Konoha's mission dictated otherwise.

Neji was not gone long, and when he returned, he was followed by nearly a hundred residents of the village. Tenten wasn't sure that, in a village this size, it wasn't almost _all _of the residents.

Once Takuya and Nami were both surrounded by angry-faced men and women as old as sixty and as young as ten, Neji said, "You can let go now, Tenten."

She did, but she kept her gaze trained on Nami. The leader eyed her in return; two females of different strength on opposite sides life. "You didn't have to live like this," Tenten murmured to her, feeling an odd connection with her even though there was no basis for it.

Nami arched one eyebrow indifferently. "What the hell do you know?"

"I suggest some of you go into the teahouse," Neji was telling the villagers who by now resembled a snarling mob after seeing Ohira's body hanging on the open door. Clearly, they were done being treated like doormats by ungrateful occupants. "You'll find the body of Nami's organization there."

Tenten walked away, joining Neji outside the villagers' crowd. "What now?"

Neji turned and, with her, left the scene. "Now the rest is up to their justice."

* * *

It was, they agreed the following morning, one of the strangest missions that either had ever undertaken.

Tenten was glad to dress in her standard, comfortable clothing with her hair back in buns. As they were leaving the village, Neji and Tenten were stopped by two farmers working in the fields.

"We've decided not to kill them all," one said, and Tenten felt relieved of the anxiety she hadn't realized she'd been experiencing. A peaceful place like this did not need a massacre etched into its history, even if it was in defense. They listened to the village's plan to take Nami's group before the government in Earth, a country known for its lack of indulgence in drugs and other physically unhealthy products. There, the group would face proper ramifications for their actions.

"I've been thinking," Neji said to her as they walked through the vegetable and rice fields, on their way to Konoha.

Tenten smiled. "You have a fondness for that, I've noticed."

He took her hand and lightly held it before continuing lightly, "I wonder if we shouldn't move the wedding up to this fall instead of next spring."

The suggestion caught Tenten by surprise. There was still so much planning to be done. "But it's almost the end of summer!" she protested, thinking of how the Hyuuga clan would react to hastened preparations.

Neji stopped her in the middle of the road. It was an open area, but as there was no one within miles, the location felt perfectly private. "I know." Lightly gripping her chin, he kissed her.

This, Tenten thought hazily, was as just and fair a moment as she could ever receive. And her heart felt wonderfully light.

**The End**


	10. The Hermit

_Notes from Goldberry: Another update at last! I've been holding up this one, I'm afraid, as I was lacking any inspiration for the card "The Hermit" until last night when this idea hit me over the head. The following gush of writing is what you're about to read. Spoilers up to manga chapter 403 and incredibly AU. Basically a "what if" story. I truly hope you enjoy. _

**THE LAST PROMISE**  
_"The Hermit"_

His earliest memories are of his mother. Warm and soft with a voice that hums a melody over and over until he falls asleep. She's not really his mother though. She tells him so when he's old enough to ask but he doesn't really care. He calls her mama anyway and she smiles when she hears it.

They live in a little house in a forest, the trees so tall and dark it's sometimes hard to see the sky through the leaves. They have a stove and a fireplace and two rooms - one for him and one for his mother, with a tiny kitchen where she makes dinner for them. His mama is a good cook. She cuts and peels potatoes and mashes them just the way he likes.

She's special, too. She can do magic.

It's not like in his bedtime stories. It's not sparkly or even pretty. It involves smoke and hand movements and sometimes even weapons, the ones he's not allowed to touch. And sometimes, just sometimes, it's blood on paper and that is the kind that scares him. He'd seen it only once but he cried for hours afterwards and his mother had rocked him and told him it was alright, it was just to protect them.

A lot of what his mother does is to protect him.

He is never entirely sure what she's afraid of but he always feels safe so he forgets about it soon enough. He obeys the rules - not to go far from the house, not to talk to strangers. Except for his uncle, of course, because he's not really a stranger, even though he doesn't live with them.

Ranmaru loves his uncle, especially because Neji can pick him up with one hand and deposit him like a lost puppy at his mother's feet. His uncle teaches him things, too. How to walk quietly in the woods, how to disappear into your surroundings, how to mediate. Ranmaru is always sad and inconsolable when Neji has to leave. His uncle only visits about every other week and then only for a few days. His mother is sad too when Neji leaves but it's a few more years before Ran really understands why.

* * *

"Mama, who is this?"

His mother glances up from her book and blinks at him, slowly coming out of her world of words. Her expressions sets when she sees what he's holding and she closes the volume on her knees. She reaches over to pluck the photograph from his fingers and he jumps into her lap, snuggling into her as she holds the picture before them.

"It's your real mother," she says, and she is so calm that he's not bothered by the notion that the woman who hugs him and loves him is not the one who gave birth to him.

"What's her name?" he asks, because it's important to know your real mother's name.

"Hinata," his mama answers gently. "Her name was Hinata."

"She has eyes like me and Uncle Neji," he notices, pointing with a pudgy finger.

His mama nods, her breath ruffling his hair comfortingly. "Yes, she does."

* * *

He is seven when he sees death for the first time.

It's spring and his mother takes him to the river to catch fish. She throws little round blades into the water like sharp stars and the fish float to the top. It's his job to scoop them up into their basket so they can be cleaned and cooked for dinner that night. They catch six silver trout before his mother tells him that's enough and he splashes to the shore, excited. Six means his uncle will be coming to dinner night. If he was not, they would have only caught four.

After fishing, his mama catches him and forces him to take a bath, scrubbing his back and making sure his hair is clean before she lets him escape. Kneeling on the bank, she unwinds her twin buns and soaps her own hair, the long locks turning almost as black as his in the water. She's just finishing when Ranmaru sees her suddenly look up and a man appears across the river.

He's not doing anything, just standing there, watching them. The stranger glances at his mama before staring at him, his eyes narrowing when he notices the color of Ranmaru's. He's wearing something shiny on his forehead. A music note with a line through it .

His mother gets slowly to her feet.

"Ran," she says, "close your eyes."

* * *

He asks his uncle about it that night, when it's just the two of them, Neji sitting on the edge of his bed. Ranmaru is under the sheets, staring at the ceiling, trying not to remember the sight of the dead man's body, a ringed knife in his chest, red streams of blood drifting downstream.

"Why did she have to kill him? He… he didn't even say anything." It's not that he think's his mother did something bad. His mama would never hurt anyone without a reason, he just doesn't understand what that is.

His uncle's voice is low and hollow as usual, strangely soothing. "The man you saw today was not a friend, Ranmaru. Your mother knew that without hearing him speak." His uncle's gaze catches his and Ran relaxes into the familiar grey, so like his own. "You know that your mother is special, that she can do things other people cannot. One of those things is the ability to sense a person's intentions, to understand things about them just by being in their presence."

Ran feels his eyes widen. "Really?"

Neji nods once. "She has very good intuition and you must learn to trust that, even if you don't know why. Do you understand?"

"Yes." He pauses a moment, thinking. "That man didn't care about mama. He was only looking at me. He was going to hurt me, wasn't he?"

His uncle rests a hand on his shoulder and Ranmaru feels warmth spread outwards from the touch. His uncle is a quiet person and doesn't embrace him often so Ran cherishes the rare, heavy safety of Neji's palm.

"That's not for certain, but I believe at the very least he would have taken you, and he would have hurt your mother." Something flickers across his uncle's face at the last and Ranmaru's eyebrows draw together in a fierce expression.

"Then I'm glad Mama killed him," he says, almost defiantly. Neji only looks at him, unreadable.

"Me, too," he says, quietly.

* * *

Their voices wake him in the morning, both of them speaking softly in the kitchen, the sun just barely touching the forest floor. Ran stays in the living area, somehow knowing by their tone that their conversation is about him. He doesn't go back to his room though. He's curious and the incident at the river has only given him more questions.

"He didn't trip any of my alarms," his mother is saying. She is standing at the kitchen sink, gazing out the little window there. To Ranmaru, she seems sad somehow, small. "He must have disabled them all without setting any of them off. Even that nasty one with the four seals…" She trails off for a moment and his uncle shifts slightly from where he is leaning back against the counter top.

"It wasn't one of his though." Neji sounds as if he is repeating something they've already discussed. "You said he didn't have any piercings."

His mother looks over, smiling faintly. Ranmaru doesn't like it. The smile is self-deprecating and he's used to his mama being cheerful, confident. "No," she agrees, "it wasn't his. I would be dead if it had been and Ran would be halfway to him by now." Her expression crumbles suddenly and his uncle has her in his arms before Ranmaru even realizes he has moved. Neji holds her tightly, her head against his shoulder, one of his hands in her long hair.

"We knew this would be hard from the beginning," his uncle tells her softly. "For you most of all." He hesitates a moment. "If you think you can no longer do this…" His mother is already shaking her head and she pulls back a little to look up into his uncle's face. Ran is relieved to see she's not crying.

"It's not that, it's just…" Her mouth tightens briefly. "What if I'm not strong enough? If anything happens to that child, I…"

Neji tilts his head down until his forehead rests against hers and they stand there together, breathing the same breath.

"Nothing is going to happen to him, Tenten." There is steel in his uncle's voice. "We made a promise and we're going to keep it. That's all."

And then his mother lifts her head, Neji bends down, and they are kissing there in the sunlight. Ranmaru feels something odd turn in his chest and he sneaks back to his bedroom, trying to figure out if he's angry at Neji for loving his mother too, or pleased that he might finally have a father.

* * *

His uncle stays longer that spring, several weeks in a row, one of which he spends teaching Ranmaru. They go out into the forest, deeper than Ranmaru can go by himself, and his uncle sets up a makeshift target of dead logs and fallen timber.

"See that knot on the log near the middle?" he asks, handing Ranmaru one of the ringed knives he's seen his mother use. "Try and hit it. Throw from the blade."

Excitedly, he tries and misses. His uncle seems unconcerned. "Again," he instructs and hands over another knife. Ran spends the next few hours at target practice and by the end he's hit the middle a few times, but not every time. Neji seems neither disappointed nor pleased. "Keep practicing. I'll have your mother set up a target for you close to the house."

"Mama doesn't let me touch weapons," Ran tells him. His uncle's mouth curves very slightly.

"I'll talk to her."

They start towards the river then and Ran feels a little sick, thinking the stranger's corpse might still be there but they're upstream and there's nothing but gurgling water and smooth stones. There's a frog, too, bright green and watching them from the bank.

"Hi," Ran says to it. The frog _ripbits_ and jumps into the water, swimming away. He glances over to find his uncle watching him carefully.

"Do you like frogs?" Neji asks, sitting down cross-legged as if he's going to meditate. Ran follows his lead.

"I guess."

"Has one ever talked to you before?"

Ran almost laughs until he sees his uncle's very serious expression. He blinks instead. "I don't think so. Animals don't talk, Uncle, except in stories."

"_Most_ animals don't talk," Neji corrects. Ran blinks at him again.

"Really?"

"Yes." His uncle pauses then and Ran frowns, not used to seeing Neji hesitate. "Has your mother told you about ninja?"

Ran nods. "Yes. She tells me stories sometimes, about villages of them, about fights." He looks over at his uncle curiously. "Are there really ninja somewhere?"

"Yes, and sometimes they use animals, special creatures that can speak. If you come across one, you must tell me or your mother."

"Okay."

They mediate then, an exercise that makes Ran restless after a little while and he can't help but ask, "Mama is a ninja, isn't she?" He'd been thinking about it for awhile, actually. "And you too."

Neji opens his eyes and looks at him calmly. "Yes."

Ran plucks a few blades of grass near his leg. "Am I one, too?"

"Not yet, but you will be."

He glances up again, thrilled. "Really?"

Instead of answering, Neji looks out over the water, his long hair ruffling in the breeze. "Ran, being a ninja means different things to different people. Some people are born to it, others have to work at it. It's a way of life. Once you begin, you will never be just a child again. You'll learn things, you'll learn illusions and fighting and how to kill people." His uncle's pearl-gray gaze settles over him. "You were born to a shinobi's life, Ran, but things are different now. If you choose, you can forget about ninja and your mother and I will take you away from here, far away where you can grow up to be whatever you please."

Ran found he could not look away from his uncle's face. "And if I want to be a ninja?"

"Then your mother and I will train you. We've already begun but it will get much harder, and at the end of it will be something you must do, a task that has been waiting for you and will keep on waiting, until you are ready."

"What is it?"

"I will tell you when you've made your choice." Ran opens his mouth but his uncle stands abruptly, cutting him off. "Don't tell me right now. You should talk to your mother first and then, together, we'll hear your decision."

* * *

They sat around the low table in the living room and his mother brought out a box. It was one she'd kept in her closet ever since Ran could remember, on the highest shelf so he'd never been able to reach it. She opens it now and he can see that it's full of things.

"That's my real mother," Ran announces, pointing at the top picture. His mama nods and pulls the photo out, handing it to him. The woman in it is small, with pale skin and the gray eyes he knows so well. Her hair is long and black and she's smiling softly, her cheeks a little red as if she's embarrassed about something. Next to her, amazingly enough, is his uncle. A younger version of his uncle, but it's still clearly him. He's wearing a formal looking outfit and there's a sword strapped to his back. He looks every inch the ninja.

And there's a third person, a man standing at his real mother's side, flashing a 'v' at the camera and grinning. He has spiky blond hair and blue eyes and Ranmaru likes him instantly.

"Who is this?" he asks, showing his mother. Tenten smiles gently.

"That, Ran, is your father, Uzumaki Naruto, the Last Hokage of Konoha."

* * *

The box holds other revelations as well. That his uncle and his mama used to be on the same three-man team and that they had fought in the Last War that had destroyed Konoha and killed almost everyone, including his real father. His real mother had survived long enough to give birth to him and to appoint Tenten and Neji as his guardians. Knowing he would be hunted, they took him deep into the forest, spreading the rumor that he had died on the birthing bed, and had raised him in secret.

His mother touches his cheek. "Ran, the person who killed your father and destroyed Konoha. His name is Pain and, if you choose to become a ninja, he will be your adversary, the one you must kill. It will be your destiny, one day, to lead Konoha from the ashes."

"How?" he asks plaintively. He's overwhelmed but determined too. He knows now how much everyone has done for him, how many died so that he could live. He can't let them down.

His mama smiles. "I don't know, but you are Naruto's son and if anyone can do it, you can." She looks across the table at his uncle. "And we will help you. Neji and I will be your teammates."

Ran brightens at the prospect. "Our own three-man team?"

"Yes. We will teach you everything we know, and what we don't know, we'll learn together."

He throws himself into her arms and hugs her tightly, suddenly sure.

"Then I want to be a ninja, Mama."

He feels her smile and she hugs him back.

"Then it's time to start," she says.

* * *

He spends the next six years in training. His mother is a strict but cheerful teacher and shows him how to use every weapon imaginable, even things not normally considered weapons like tables and chairs and butter knives. He learns how to do calligraphy and how to hit what he aims at and his mother smiles and tells him to do it over again.

His uncle is even more stern and lets him get away with very little. Ran drills for hours on clan history and blood limits until he' s tired and irritable and then Neji forces him into meditation to clear his head.

It's when Neji teaches him about his eyes, though, that everything starts to seem real. He learns to activate the Byakugan and to see long distances, to see the chakra channels inside another person's body. Neji shows him the Gentle Fist and Ran spends several uncomfortable weeks with various _tenketsu_ closed until he finally learns how to open them again on his own.

Ran is a fast learner and he tries hard but at thirteen he can feel an invisible deadline looming ahead of him. His three-man team is amazing and he loves them, but his mama and uncle are only getting older. At thirty-five they are almost past their prime as shinobi and Ran worries about how many more years they can wait before facing Pain.

He mentions something similar to them at the dinner table and his mother laughs prettily. "Oh Ran, don't worry about us getting old. Our team used to do everything late in life." She looks across the table at Neji, brown eyes sparkling, and his uncle sets down his drink.

"Old," he murmurs. He meets Tenten's gaze and his lips curve in that almost, not-quite smile. "Shall we show him how wrong he is?"

"Oh yes, please," his mother answers, getting up.

For the first time in years, Ranmaru sees his mother and uncle spar.

He's seen them fight before, of course, for the sake of example, but this is an all-out fight that topples trees and rends craters in the earth. Ranmaru sees the true power of the Gentle Fist for the first time and the elegance of the Kaiten. He is witness to his mother's ballerina grace as she sends scrolls spinning and makes dragons from smoke, creates storms of steel and sends them crashing to the earth.

And she shows him the blindspot, the single pinpoint where he might be hurt, where even his eyes cannot see.

"But no one will ever hit you there," she says, almost smugly. "I've protected Neji's back this long, and I will guard yours as well."

The fight is breathtaking and beautiful and Ran can see why they are teammates. They have an innate awareness of each other that makes it incredibly difficult for one of them to get the upper hand. Tenten knows all of Neji's tricks and Neji can see every move Tenten will make. They end the spar in a draw, both of theme exhausted and low on chakra.

They've been fighting for four hours.

"Still think we're old?" Tenten asks, grinning, as all three of them collapse on his mother's bed.

"I think I've been suitably chastised," he answers and she laughs, pressing a light kiss into his forehead.

"Don't worry about us, Ran," she tells him, more seriously. "We seem to have the uncanny ability to survive almost anything. We will be at your side on the day you face Pain. I promise."

And he believes her, because even after all these years, she's still his mama.

* * *

Neji takes him on his first mission when he is fourteen. He's much older than most shinobi on their first mission but his mother tells him that's not important now. Nothing is like it was.

They leave Tenten behind and she kisses them both before letting them go. It feels strange leaving her there alone and he suddenly understands how his uncle must have felt in those years he had come and gone from the house.

"You were going on missions all that time?" Ranmaru asks, as they jump from tree limb to tree limb, high above the forest floor.

"Yes. Surveillance mostly. I had to make sure no one knew we had taken you. It was easier for me to protect the two of you by staying away." Neji comes to a stop on a wide branch and Ranmaru lands near him, watching his uncle's face. "I wasn't very good with children either."

Ran smiles. "I think you did okay."

Neji looks over at him and, even though his expression doesn't change, Ran can tell he is smiling. He has learned to read his uncle very well over the years. "Your mother loved you the moment she held you, even though you weren't hers. Despite that, it was hard for her in the beginning. Your mother is a fighter but living alone with a baby frightened her. She was always afraid for you." He pauses, his voice lowering. "And I was always afraid I would return to find her dead and you taken, or worse. It…was a strange time, for the both of us."

"You were afraid?" Ran asks, because he's always thought of his uncle as fearless, unflappable. Even now, Neji's expression is impassive, as if he is speaking of something else entirely.

"Yes. You will come to understand, Ran, that fear is not an obstacle in and of itself. Sometimes it is just the fuel you need to overcome one."

Ran smiles slightly before sobering again. "Do you… ever regret it? You and my mother, you love each other but you were never really able to have a life together, have children of your own. Do you-" But his uncle's hand is suddenly on his shoulder and Ran freezes, surprised by the intent look on Neji's face.

"We regret nothing," his uncle tells him, almost fiercely. "You _are_ our child, Ranmaru, and we are very proud of you. Never forget that."

Ran shuffles a little and hopes Neji can't see the tears in his eyes. "I won't, Uncle. I promise."

Neji's squeezes his shoulder once and then drops his hand. "Then let's go."

* * *

That mission is also the first time Ran has to kill someone and it's both more and less then he expected. The spy dies without fanfare and Ran is left holding a bloody fuuma shuriken while his uncle rolls the body into the river.

"We all do what we must, Ranmaru," his uncle tells him evenly. "He did his duty and you did yours. That is all."

Ran nods mutely and he understands, he does, he just wishes duty didn't feel so much like murder.

* * *

"Ranmaru, do you ever wonder about the marking on your back?"

Ran glances over to where his mother is peeling potatoes over the sink. She's not looking at him but he senses something different in her tone. He's fifteen.

"Uncle Neji told me when I was little that it was a protective seal my real mother gave me before she died. He said it would keep me safe."

Tenten nods. "That's true." She says nothing else and Ran frowns at her back.

"Is there something more to it than that?"

He sees her hands pause and he almost opens his mouth to question her again when another peel joins the others in the sink.

"No," she answers finally, "Nothing more than that."

* * *

He's sixteen when he beats his uncle in a spar for the first time. He's almost horrified when he realizes that his uncle is unconscious, chakra-drained, and that he himself is still feeling a surge of fiery chakra that is just barely under control.

Tenten patches them both up, puts Neji to bed, and reassures Ran. "It was bound to happen, Ran. You are your father's son and Naruto had the greatest chakra reserve anyone had ever seen." She smiles impishly. "Neji has had it coming for years."

* * *

That is also the year his mother gives him the forehead protector from her box, the one with the leaf symbol on it. It's a little rough around the edges but it still gleams.

"It was your father's," Tenten tells him. "Your mother wanted you to have it when you were ready."

"Ready?"

"To fight Pain."

He swallows and ties it around his forehead. Tenten smiles at the sight but Ran can't help himself. He has to ask.

"Mother, if…if my father couldn't defeat Pain and he was one of the greatest ninja to ever live, how can _I_ possibly…"

His mother's expression turns solemn. "It's not going to be easy, Ran. And I must apologize, too, that Neji and I can't teach you your father's techniques." Tenten's mouth quirks. "He was truly one of a kind, but where he failed, you will succeed. Do not forget that Pain, too, has grown older and we know how his techniques work. He may be strong but you have something he no longer does."

"What's that?" he whispers. Tenten stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

"People who love you," she answers.

* * *

In the Fall of this eighteenth year, Ran and his three-man team leave the little house he was raised in and return to the overgrown ruins of Konoha. Looking out over the toppled buildings and the burned and blasted side of the great mountain, Ran feels something rise up within, a great power that has slept and waited for him to arrive, to stand there, _right there_, and survey his inheritance.

_Are you ready for this, boy?_

Ran glances over at his uncle and his mother, two warriors from an era long gone, both his family and his teammates. His mother smiles at him, a hard smile ready for combat, and Neji gazes at him, steady as a rock wall to his back. Ran takes a deep breath.

_I won't fail them, no matter what._

A great laugh rings through his head, amused and perhaps, challenged.

_Then show me what you can do. _

And Ran does.

**THE END.**


	11. Wheel of Fortune

_Nessie's Note: Oh goodness, it's been a long time, hasn't it? This is entirely my fault. What with school and original work and general lack of inspiration, this fic just wouldn't happen. Fortunately, I found a groove and learned that I like writing madmen who just won't shut up. I hope you don't mind. And thanks for your patience on the update!_

_Also, Happy Birthday to my dear collaborator! Here's some future fic for you!_

**Thanks For Playing**

"The Wheel of Fortune"

By Nessie

Tenten woke at dawn, which wasn't right. It was hours after Neji should have reentered the tent, stirred her from sleep and taken his share of rest while she finished the night's watch. Now she could smell the grass, wet with dew, as dull gray light shone through tiny holes in the old canvas.

Her first instinct was irritation. He did this sometimes; when Neji got into a mood, he tended to stay up all night and let her sleep while he contemplated the future or the purpose of shinobi in life's big picture (at twenty-five, he'd already turned philosophical), always using the excuse that she had looked tired. On their own time she was willing to call him foolish and let it slide, but on missions…on missions it was stupid, and unacceptable. She supposed it was also sweet, but Tenten prided herself on her common sense. Over the years, she had developed a pragmatic side, good for figuring this out and fixing problems – probably from too many missions with Nara Shikamaru.

She and Neji were supposed to be in the Land of Wind by noon, charged with the security of a leading tradesman from the Land of Fire who worried that the group of small villages he was marketing to would take underhanded action if his deal was undesirable. Tenten thought his concern was unfounded; any shinobi the villages hired would be dispatched by the Kazekage, and Gaara would never jeopardize relations between Wind and Fire.

But, Tenten reflected inwardly as she wound her hair into twin buns, it would take Neji's Byakugan to know for sure, and that wasn't going to be easy if the Hyuuga was bleary.

"Neji?" She called for him a second time, trying to keep her displeasure out of her voice so she could unleash it once they were face-to-face. Rolling her eyes when he didn't answer, she shoved her sleeping bag and the blades she'd left lying around (accounting for the tent's holes) into her knapsack, grabbing up Neji's fully packed bag as she went out. "Hey, Neji! Ne—"

He always kept watch within ten yards of the tent, but Tenten couldn't find him within fifty. They had already crossed the point where Fire's springy grass faded into Wind's endless sand. Though they hadn't gotten so far that the true cold of the night desert had ravaged their camp, the trees were fairly sparse and the nearest stream was an hour's run behind them. She gathered up the traps she had set the day before; none of them had gone off. Tenten's irritation began to give way to nerves.

And when she returned to the tent and found a scroll stabbed into the sand with one of her own shuriken, the nervousness stuck in her throat like a swallowed rock. The paper was dry, but the morning breeze had brushed a good amount of sand over it, meaning its deliverer had come between five and ten minutes ago, while she had been searching for Neji. And that was enough time to get gone.

The note was concise, direct. Neji had been taken during the night. The description of him was flawless, right down to the "odd mark" on his forehead. She was to come for him by midnight; enclosed was a map of the Land of Wind. The location indicated was opposite from their mission assignment. She could choose duty, or her partner. And if she didn't come, Neji would be killed.

As simple as the message was, it still didn't make sense. There was no motive, no sign of emotion at all, only instructions like the rules to a game. Creases lined the paper where Tenten's fingers held it, the only outward display of response. Then, carefully, she folded the scroll and added it to her backpack, taking out two more scrolls at the same time. The first was to the Hokage, explaining the situation and her intended plan of action. The second was to the Kazekage, mostly the same but in less detail, along with an apology and her promise that she would take full responsibility for her actions.

Two more minutes and the scrolls were on their way, carried by two summoned hawks with whom she had made a blood treaty more than a year earlier. Once Naruto and Gaara understood her position, she was sure they would pull the necessary strings to rectify the professional mistake she was making. Perhaps she would be demoted afterwards, civilianized, or even exiled from Konoha altogether. It didn't matter.

Someone had kidnapped Neji. Professionalism be damned; this was personal.

***

Night fell earlier in the desert – Tenten liked that. It meant the encroaching darkness and the ever-increasing cold threw off the guards, and the bevy of men at the base of the rock system she was poised atop allowed themselves to be distracted. She watched them shiver. Below her were twelve, and while approaching the site she had counted five walking the perimeter. None of them were apparently shinobi, which explained why no one was posted at the very place from which she now spied; they couldn't climb difficult outcroppings like this cave because they couldn't seal the soles of their feet with chakra. Even if they could, _they _hadn't been trained by Maito Gai. Tenten and her teammates could top rocks like this on their hands if necessary.

Her frown tightened. Then again, they had also been trained not to get captured. Neji, of all people, was currently being held inside this cave. And despite the directions from his capturer's message, the guards didn't look ready to oblige anyone who sought entry.

She was silent as she unraveled the pale wire, thin as two strands of her hair and twice sharper than a kunai, and lowered a loop of it, the two ends wrapped around her gloved hands. Only the one nearest the entrance needed to be taken out discreetly. A Soshoryu at half power would take care of the rest. She watched her target, a lanky man who looked on the verge of chattering, as he swatted at the wire, undoubtedly mistaking it for a string of spider-silk in front of his face. He missed and the loop hung loosely just above his neckline. Tenten pursed her lips. A weapon-filled scroll was tucked under the middle finger on both hands. She flicked a last glance at the unwitting men, trying not to wonder if they had families. If she waited any longer, her breath would become visible in bright puffs of air over their heads. She pinched the ends of wire beneath the opposite thumbs and forefingers.

The scrolls flew open. And she tugged.

***

The cave was only one big tunnel, not several as she had thought, but that simplified things. She only had to walk for a minute before she could see a faint glow ahead, and she ran at the light, blinking rapidly after emerging in it.

It was a room, mostly bare but for a carpet on the stone floor, a small table, an odd mechanism with a lever set into one wall, and—

"Neji!" Her call reverberated in the cave's high ceiling, magnifying the shock in her voice.

Her partner was chained to a round slab turned on one end. Triangles of blue, green, red, and yellow divided the wood, so bright and cheerful that it absurdly looked like a giant lollipop. Neji's chin pressed to his chest, hair falling black and tangled close to his face. At the sound of his name, he looked up, eyes wide. "Tenten?"

Relief coursed through her like a healing vaccine. For a moment, she had feared his eyes would be gone; blood limits were popular to hidden villages that didn't have any. But aside from a section on his scalp where his hair was clumped with dried blood, his missing forehead protector, and bruising where the chains held him, he appeared fine. Sakura could cure head trauma, and bruises were nothing. "You're alive," she exhaled. "You're all right."

Neji's gaze moved to a point behind her.

"That depends entirely on you."

A kunai was raised and pointed at the speaker faster than Tenten could turn her head to look at him. A tall and portly man of dark complexion and light hair stood in the mouth of the tunnel. He was too clean to have spent much time in the desert and too well-dressed to be a local of any nearby villages. Yet here he stood, at the middle of Wind inside a damp and chilly cave, smiling at Tenten as thought she was an unexpected guest he was pleased to see.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he began. "My name—"

"I don't care," Tenten said sharply.

The man was halted, unused to being interrupted, and it took a second before he relaxed again. "I think you will once I explain the predicament you are in. After all, you don't know what _that _is, do you?" He gestured to the mechanism on the wall.

Tenten didn't answer.

"No, I didn't think so. You fighting types know so little about technology." The man cleared his throat, and the beginnings of a second chin wobbled in front of his neck. "My name is Suichi. I'm a businessman from the Land of Water. As such, I've had some experience with shinobi, though Konoha has a rather different mentality than Kirigakure. That was an unforeseen…ah…" Suichi aimed a hard smile in Neji's direction. "Issue."

"What is it you want?" Tenten demanded, tired of his babbling. "What's so important to a businessman from Water that you would kidnap my teammate?"

"Nothing much. You see, I'm no longer working. My trade was quite successful, and I've retired. But retirement can be boring – just so you know, when you start considering it – so I took to traveling. I came here." His smile widened. "And I seek to amuse myself with a game I've devised. Observe the wheel."

Tenten waited until he moved to where she could keep her eye on him before she looked. What she really saw was Neji but she again noted the colored triangles. "What about it?"

"It's hollow. Lining the insides are two hundred explosive tags." Tenten's breath caught. "Now, I'm no shinobi but even I can perform a simple hand seal to set them off. The chains binding your partner run beneath this carpet and into the wall behind that lever. When it's pulled, the wheel shall spin until it loses momentum. The result is whichever color is aimed skyward."

Out of instinct, Tenten checked the current result. Yellow. Neji's dark hair was shocking black against it. She deliberately kept from meeting the eyes just below.

"Each color represents a different outcome, or action I should say. Here." He handed her a small card, which Tenten accepted balefully.

_Green: Hyuuga's chains release and you leave. _

_Yellow: Nothing happens. Play again!_

_Blue: Hyuuga's chains release, and I get one free mission from Team Gai. Everybody wins!_

_Red: The 200 tags explode. Everybody loses._

_THANKS FOR PLAYING! _

"You bastard!" Tenten screamed, the curse echoing forcefully around them.

"Oh, but you still have one more option," Suichi said calmly. "You don't play at all. You turn around and walk out right now. Hyuuga stays. I'm sure _someone _will try to win his life for him, Tenten. You certainly don't _have_ to."

"Why are you doing this?" she hissed. "Why to us?"

Suichi looked annoyed. "I've told you already. I am bored. And you Konoha shinobi, you have such a go-to mentality. And you, Tenten?" Suddenly, he grinned and held up a page taken from his pocket. It was a copy of her Bingo Book profile. "I can see you're a player."

"No." Neji's tone was so hard, so ice-cold that Tenten almost flinched. "Look at me, Tenten."

She did, and then immediately wished she hadn't. Neji's gaze was steady but the light in it was fierce.

"Don't do it. He's insane. There's another way."

She breathed deeply, nodding agreement, showing her support. "Yes. We'll find—"

"You won't," Suichi interrupted loudly. "I've done my research, young lady. You could free him from those chains with your impressive arsenal, but not faster than I could set off the tags. Neji might be able to break iron with his Hakkeshou Kaiten, but not bound up like that. You like to think your way out of things, don't you? But this isn't a game of wits. You'll notice the lever doesn't account for strength. You can't determine the force to use for achieving a desirable result. This is a wheel of fortune. _This is a true game of chance_!"

"And if I kill you right now?" Tenten inquired, raising the kunai higher. She had already identified sixteen places she could throw the blade and snuff out Suichi's life instantly.

Suichi shrugged. "That would be an interesting course of action. Maybe I would form the seal in time, maybe I wouldn't. But what has the better odds?"

He was right. When it came down to it, her success with the wheel had a likelihood of three-to-one. That beat fifty-fifty.

Slowly, she lowered the kunai.

"Tenten," Neji began as she stepped toward the wall-mounted lever. "This is…" He stopped when their eyes met. Tenten didn't smile, every one of her muscles was tense, but she still believed this was the right move. He could see that without Byakugan. Neji sighed. "It's your game."

"No, Neji." Tenten set her hand on the lever. The wood grain was new and smooth under her palm. "I don't think of it as a game. Close your eyes." He did. Across the room, Suichi's eyebrows rose with anticipation. Tenten smelled her own sweat. The lever came down.

The chains rattled in the wall and under the rug. The unseen engine whirred and Neji, eyes closed, spun round with the wheel. He turned once, twice, and half of a third time before the wheel slowed and finally stopped.

"Oooh, yellow!" Suichi yelled, excited beyond reason. "Try again, Tenten! Again!"

"Yes," Tenten murmured, never looking away from Neji. He breathed steadily, and next to his eyes a trail of veins protruded. "I think I will."

She pulled the lever.

***

"Here." Tenten handed Neji his forehead protector, found on the table beside the lever. He tied it hurriedly into place; she knew he didn't like her seeing his cursed seal. She smiled up at him. "I'm really proud of you, Neji."

"You thought I wouldn't figure it out?"

"No, I…well…" Tenten grinned sheepishly. "I was worried."

"I don't have to be standing on the ground, or even upright, to perform the Kaiten. All I need is rotation, and the jutsu activates. But then," he added with a smirk, "you know that."

With the Kaiten activated, the iron chains had broken under the force of his chakra while Tenten had apprehended Suichi, rendering his threat of explosive tags useless.

Neji rocked back on his heels. "There will be consequences, you know. The Hokage may ignore it this time since our mission was more or less pointless—"

"Naruto knows what it's like to have a teammate kidnapped," she cut in. "He would've done the same thing. Any of us would have, and everybody knows it."

Neji nodded, wordlessly agreeing with her.

"You damn—damn shinobi!" Suichi shrieked, as he had for the last five minutes, chained to his own wheel by his own chains. "This wasn't part of the game! This isn't how you win!"

Neji leaned on Tenten, and the two ignored him, making their way out of the cave. Only after they had passed the perimeter where the last of the bodies Tenten had silenced lay did either of them speak.

"Do you remember when we were Chuunin?" asked Tenten.

Neji was focused on conserving his energy but he murmured a reply. "Yes."

"You saved me. All the time, it seemed like. This is the first time I've saved you."

Silence passed between them while they clambered up a dune, then paused to stare at the stars. Neji was judging by the constellations which way would take them to Sunagakure. Tenten was just staring.

"Never take the whole night watch again," she ordered. Her tone left no room for refusal.

The desert was bitterly cold, and he tightened his around her, rubbing his hand over her arm in an attempt to keep her warm. The sand under their feet slowed their progress, but she held onto him. "I should say thank you."

"Neji." His name sounded like _you know better_. She stopped and turned to him. Cupping his face between her cool hands, she rose onto her toes for a long kiss. When she broke away, he was smiling. "For what?"

Neji brought her closer until not an breath of air would fit between their bodies. His mouth hovered over hers. "For playing."

**The End**


	12. Strength

_Notes: WE LIVE! _

**NOT FOR ONE ALONE  
**"Strength"

By Goldberry**  
**

"Neji! Neji! NEJI!"

"_What?_" Hyuuga Neji snapped, sliding open his window with more force than necessary. It was a cool, crisp evening and well after midnight, most others having taken to their beds long before. Neji had been meditating after returning from a long, mostly uneventful, mission and he'd been looking forward to a little peace and quiet now that he was home. Leave it to Rock Lee to ruin that notion.

His childhood teammate was standing in the courtyard, his hands cupped around his mouth as if his irritatingly loud voice somehow needed more amplifying. His shouting had drawn the curious gazes of some of Neji's family, not to mention the somewhat more suspicious looks of the estate's servants.

Lee's face cleared as he caught sight of him but his expression remained firm, worried almost. Neji's forehead creased but Lee spoke before he could ask what was wrong.

"You must come to the hospital, Neji. There's been… Something's happened."

* * *

Gai was waiting for them in the hospital lobby. He looked tired and drawn but when he saw Lee, the two embraced in a flurry of tears and green spandex. Neji ignored them both, walking past the lobby purposefully, letting his eyes lead him. A nurse called out to stop him but he ignored her, quickening his pace as he neared the familiar chakra signature.

Tenten's room was full of machines.

She wore an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth that misted briefly with her shallow breaths. It could not disguise, however, the terrible bruises over most of her face, her left eye swollen shut. There was blood at her hairline, though he could see one of her attendants had tried to clean most of it away, and more underneath her fingernails. Three fingers on her right hand were broken and her arm had been pulled into a sling for stability. The sheets hid the rest of her body but he had seen enough. Tenten had fought and she had been beaten, badly, most likely by at least two different people judging from the different hand-sized bruises on her arms.

He felt Lee and Gai enter the room at his back, Lee moving around to stand on the other side of Tenten's bed in order to hold her free, less-injured hand.

"What happened?" Neji asked lowly, hands fisted at his side. "She told me it was a peace keeping mission, that she was only to negotiate a small dispute."

Gai's hand squeezed his shoulder and there was strength in his grip despite the tears in his eyes. "We won't know for sure until she wakes up, but it looks like the mission was a trap, Neji. There was no dispute. The two parties were in league with each other to lure in a Konoha ninja."

Lee's eyebrows drew together. "But, Gai-sensei, why would anyone want to hurt Tenten? She has never hurt anyone without cause!"

"I do not know, Lee," Gai replied, his voice wobbling a bit. "Our precious flower was attacked without provocation! My own student, beaten within an inch of her life by those she was trying to protect!" This thought proved too much for Gai who broke down into tears, prompting a similarly watery outburst from his favorite student.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee wailed.

"Lee!" Gai burbled.

Neji left the room. There were no tears in him, only a terrible tightness in his chest, like the pressure of a coiled spring before motion. Tenten's bruised face hung in his mind's eye and it was all that he could see as he stopped a medic abruptly in the hall, watching as Shizune eyed him in disgruntled surprise.

"I need to see the Hokage," he said.

* * *

Tenten woke hours later to a dark room and something held over her face and for a brief, heart-pounding moment, she thought she was still behind held against her will. A machine nearby started to beep rapidly and she jerked as a hand came to rest on her shoulder gently, Neji's face appearing over her as he moved an oxygen mask down and away.

"It's alright. You're safe."

"Neji," she croaked, hoarsely, and then grimaced at the sound of her own voice, a movement that made every part of her face ache. There was something wrong with her eyes too. Her left one didn't seem to want to open more than a slit, making her field of vision somewhat murky and off. Her fingers ached fiercely.

"Hospital?" she managed, as her teammate leaned over to allow her a sip of water from a nearby cup.

"They brought you in a little before midnight. They found you collapsed beneath a tree outside the gates." Neji's expression was rigid, unmoving, but his eyes were alive, cataloguing her reactions. "Do you remember what happened?"

She looked away from him for a moment, trying to absorb the situation. Had it been just two days she had left for that tiny, remote village along the border? She had gone to mediate a dispute between two family clans, an inheritance squabble of some sort. She had thought it would be quick and easy, but when she had arrived…

"It was a lie," she murmured, swallowing. "They were waiting for me. I didn't understand what was happening…" Her good eye closed briefly and she felt Neji shift next to her, the sound of papers rustling. She looked over at him again he had a manila file in his hand.

"I talked to Tsunade. She said the village requested a certain _shinobi_ for the mission, specifically, one trained by Maito Gai." Neji's voice was flat and she wished she could see better because she was having trouble reading him. Was he angry she had accepted the mission? She licked her lips and tried to focus on him.

"Yes, I was aware of that." She grimaced at a sudden, aching throb of pain from her left arm and fingers. "It didn't seem that unusual, and the request seemed so trivial I didn't think it was important. Besides, you were busy and Lee has never been good at mediation, it would have had to be me, anyway." She tried to smile then but it fell crookedly when it pulled against her bruises.

Neji leaned closer, his gaze intense, as if he could pull the answers out of her by sheer force of will alone. "Tenten, who did this to you? I want a name."

She blinked. "Neji, I think we should wait for…"

His chin lifted slightly and he looked down at her with that aristocratic arrogance he so often used on others, a look that said he was going to get what he wanted no matter what she thought. She sighed softly, suddenly feeling very, very tired.

"He said his name was Asura," she told him quietly. "He said Gai killed his father."

There was a moment of silence as she and Neji had a silent conversation before he leaned over and pressed a feather-light kiss to her forehead.

"Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning."

Urgently, she fought to sit up, crossing her good hand over her body to catch the edge of his shirt through the railing on the bed. "Please, Neji," she huffed, exhausted even from that little movement. "Don't tell Gai. I don't want him to know, he'll just blame himself. I escaped, that's all that should…" The monitor by her bedside starting beeping faster again and Neji carefully pressed her back onto the bed before she could say anything else, his fingers lingering on hers for just a moment.

"I won't tell him," he answered finally, watching her relax at his words.

"Thank you," she whispered, good eye fluttering closed. She felt his knuckles brush her cheek briefly and then sleep claimed her again and she knew nothing more.

* * *

"Lee."

Lee mumbled sleepily, rolling over to sprawl, limbs akimbo, over his bed. He'd been dreaming about racing Neji in 100 laps around the village and he was only on 89….

"Lee."

91! Oh, his eternal rival was good, but Lee had youthful charm and love on his side, there was no way he would lose to…

"LEE."

Lee woke abruptly as the covers were suddenly ripped off of him and he was dumped unceremoniously on the floor, the sheets thrown back into his face. When he finally surfaced from them, he found Neji standing in the middle of his bedroom, a slightly self-satisfied gleam in his eye.

"Get up. We're going."

* * *

Neji did not bring Lee inside the tiny village with him. He couldn't be for sure, but Lee might have objections to what he was about to do and he couldn't allow him to get in his way. Neji had told him where they were going and that he was going to dispense justice to those that had hurt Tenten, but he had been purposefully vague on the details of how. Let Lee think what he wanted. He would be safer that way.

The village was small, one of those places where everyone knew everyone so it wasn't hard to learn the whereabouts of a man he was looking for. Cloaked and hooded to hide the white of his eyes, his forehead protector in his pocket, Neji knocked on the door he had been told of. A few seconds later it opened to reveal a man a few years older than him, with short, dark hair and bandages wrapped around both wrists. He had scratches on his face as well, like those from fingernails.

Neji felt the tightness in his chest ease.

"Asura?"

The man's expression grew suspicious. "Yes?"

"I heard you were looking for a student of Maito Gai?" Calmly, he pushed back his hood, invoking the _Byakugan_ simultaneously, feeling the veins near his eyes swell with power. "Seems like you found me."

Asura took an unsteady step back. Neji calmly stepped inside and closed the door.

* * *

When she woke the next day, both Lee and Gai were there, along with Neji. Lee couldn't figure out how to hug her without hurting her so he settled with clinging to her hand and rubbing his cheek against the back of it as if he were some sort of demented kitten. It made her laugh though, which hurt quite a bit and she promptly decided to not do again, at least until she was healed.

Gai was his usual over-emotional self, dripping big, wet tears on her one moment and flashing a gleaming white smile at her the next, declaring that she would be better in no time because her youth was a fiery flame that could never be doused. It must not have been too fiery, however, as after about an hour the combination of both Lee and Gai had thoroughly exhausted her. Luckily, Neji noticed and kicked the pair of them out. They went good-naturedly, making grand plans for when she was released from the hospital and crowing with delight as each other's ideas. Tenten smiled to herself as they left.

"They never change," she murmured. Neji snorted as he shut the door behind them but didn't comment, settling himself instead in the chair by her bed. She watched him a long moment before asking the thing that had been on her mind for a while.

"Tell me you didn't go to that village last night." Neji merely looked at her, calm and unflinching, and she frowned. After a moment she asked, "Was it true what he said? Did Gai kill his father?"

"Yes," Neji replied quietly. "He was a causality of a mission Gai was heading up to retrieve information on Akatsuki a few years ago. They were caught in a pitched battled with two Akatsuki members and Asura's father was killed. He felt Gai had led his father to his death."

"So, he wanted to hurt Gai as he had been hurt," she offered, softly. Neji nodded.

"He told me it was justice, what he had done. He meant to kill you so that Gai would experience the pain of loss as well."

Tenten shifted slightly. "Justice…or vengeance?" she wondered aloud.

"I suppose it depends on your point of view," Neji replied evenly.

They sat in silence then, Tenten just soaking in the quiet, easy feeling that being with Neji sometimes brought, the knowledge that he didn't expect her to say anything, to make conversation she didn't feel like making. She didn't want to know what Neji had done to Asura. She knew he had not killed him and she understood that he could not have left it alone. Not when Asura would surely seek to complete his "justice" against Gai since he hadn't finished the job with her.

"It's sort of sad when you think about it," she said finally, stifling a yawn. She could feel her pain meds kicking in, offering a hazy, dreamless sleep. "It's a cycle that doesn't have an end."

Neji was quiet a moment. "Not as long as we have the strength to care for others," he agreed.

**THE END.**


End file.
